HPE Delivers Sustainable Digital Transformation Through Pivot to As-a-service, According to Annual ESG Report

Hewlett Packard Enterprise released its annual Living Progress Report for fiscal year 2020, demonstrating its ongoing commitment to help customers drive digital transformations that reduce their carbon footprint, protect human rights throughout its value chain, and help customers and communities weather the unprecedented challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Highlights from the report include:

Enabling sustainable transformations for customers

• HPE’s sustainability and IT efficiency capabilities are a strategic differentiator in customer relationships. Its unique customer engagement practice co-develops customer-specific strategies to reduce environmental impact, contributing to approximately $847 million in net revenue in 2020 (44% YoY increase).
• The HPE portfolio of consumption-based, as-a-service offerings is driving sustainable outcomes for customers. HPE GreenLake uses efficient hardware and solutions configured to, on average, deliver customers 30% energy savings over five years, compared to traditional capital expenditure models, due to reductions in overprovisioning.
• HPE Technology Renewal Centers recovered and processed 3.1 million IT assets in 2020, remarketing 87% of those assets for a second life while yielding profit for HPE and returning capital back to customers.

Playing a leading role in the net-zero transition

• HPE is making progress toward its net-zero ambition. The company achieved two science-based climate targets ahead of schedule, reducing operational emissions by 62% (exceeding 55% target) and absolute manufacturing-related emissions by 15% (meeting 15% target) from 2016 levels.
• HPE was an early adopter of TCFD recommendations and has published our third TCFD-aligned report assessing climate-related risks and opportunities. HPE modelling confirms that the physical risks of climate change will continue to impact the company and that developing technology solutions to facilitate a low-carbon transition could yield significant market opportunities for the business.
• HPE continues to partner with suppliers to increase their own ESG performance. 80% of HPE production suppliers have set, or have committed to set, science-based emissions reduction targets within the next two years. Social and Environmental Responsibility (SER) performance is factored into HPE procurement decisions through its supplier business scorecard.

Creating a culture of inclusivity and responsibility

• HPE actively measures and ties rewards for top leaders to the deployment of its culture, including employee engagement, talent retention, and representation of female and ethnically diverse talent. This year’s report includes expanded disclosures regarding the makeup of HPE’s U.S. workforce by ethnicity and gender by job category. In 2020, HPE increased female representation at every level worldwide, including technical and executive roles, and performed above industry peers in gender and most U.S. ethnically diverse categories.
• Employee engagement was at an all-time high, at 83%, supported by efforts around employee training, development, and benefits. Employee voluntary attrition also dropped to just 5%, a rate well-below industry norm. The health and well-being of team members remained HPE’s top priority amidst the pandemic, and wellness support, personal protective supplies, and educational resources were made available.
• HPE’s long-held focus on human rights extended across the value chain. In 2020, HPE ranked first on KnowTheChain’s ICT benchmark for forced labor, and second on the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark. Additionally, to support the responsible development, deployment, and use of artificial intelligence, HPE developed a set of AI ethical principles to guide the company in mitigating risks and adverse impacts associated with the use of such technology.

Supporting stakeholders amid the COVID-19 crisis

• HPE Financial Services offered $2 billion in financing to companies experiencing hardship due to the pandemic, helping them weather the storm and respond to new demands for connectivity and other infrastructure brought on by the sudden shift to remote work.
• HPE donated Aruba connectivity kits valued at $26 million to schools, hospitals, and other institutions. In India, HPE converted dozens of e-Health Centers to expand access to testing and telemedicine in underserved areas of the country, facilitating more than 500,000 patient visits to date.
• Building on longstanding partnerships with the U.S. government, HPE provided free Cray supercomputing software to the White House COVID-19 Supercomputing Consortium to help advance therapeutic and vaccine research. Additionally, HPE joined the Open COVID Patent Pledge, joining peers in the industry in making its intellectual property available free-of-charge to researchers working to combat the pandemic.

The HPE Living Progress Report aligns to prominent reporting standards and frameworks, including SASB (Sustainability Accounting Standards Board) and GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), and integrates the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

Read the full report here.

Media contact: Adam Bauer, adam.bauer@hpe.com

Read the Report