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| HP is working to reduce each year the environmental impact of transporting our products around the world. Most of our computer and imaging products are assembled in Asia, while the majority of HP's sales are in Europe and the Americas. We typically transport these products by ship from Asia to regional distribution centers, for transport to their final destination by truck or by rail. We use air transport for lighter products, such as cameras, and when urgent deliveries are necessary. We typically produce servers in the region in which they are sold.
Our logistics network uses significant fossil fuel for ships, trucks and aircraft. The resulting vehicle emissions contribute to climate change and can increase local air pollution. We are unable to measure these emissions because we use third parties rather than our own transport fleet. |
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Our Design for Logistics program improves transport efficiency throughout HP and decreases energy use per pound of product transported. It ensures that we consider the broad logistics implications of new product packaging and transport, including issues such as pallets and truck loading (see Performance).
We also seek to reduce environmental impacts of our logistics network through a shift from air to ocean freight where practicable. Every tonne of freight transported by air for one kilometer results in 0.6 Kg of CO2 emissions, compared to just 0.003 Kg for ocean transport1.
In 2006, we reduced the environmental impacts of transporting our products by continued modal shift from air transport to sea transport and by improving transport planning and pallet use.
- Switched more products from air to ship. Although in 2005 we chartered 19 aircraft specifically to transport printer products from Asia to the United States, in 2006 we used none.
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- Improved loading to use full truck loads rather than partial loads, increasing capacity utilization from 75% to more than 80%. This reduced the number of trips per product sold by 10% for the Imaging and Printing Group in the United States, avoiding more than 100,000 transport miles, saving 18,000 gallons of diesel fuel and so avoiding 182 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions2.
- Used special pallets in air transport containers, which created space for one additional pallet and improved capacity utilization by approximately 9%.
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- Introduced plastic pallets for notebook computer shipments by air from China to Europe. Plastic pallets weigh less than a quarter of wooden ones and require less energy to transport.
- Used taller pallets in trucks, eliminating one pallet layer. This saved approximately 100,000 pallets and $800,000 in 2006, as well as 21,000 board feet of wood.
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