| HP staged a high profile roundtable event on Energy Efficiency in July, once again demonstrating that topics relating to all elements of climate change need more attention and action than ever. The event provided an opportunity for international media to hear HP’s wider business case for energy efficiency and how we are working with our customers to encourage them to integrate environmental factors into their buying decisions.
Energy efficiency is an increasingly important issue affecting society and today’s global economy. Pressure is mounting from policy-makers, non-government organisations, businesses and consumers to address energy demand and resource conservation.
Most recently, the European Parliament has started to investigate whether more stringent, minimum standards are required to force manufacturers to pay more attention to energy consumption when designing office equipment and consumer electronics.
Efficiency designs
Presenting HP’s business case for energy efficiency, Bernard Meric, HP EMEA senior vice president External Affairs, highlighted the potential for improving efficiency in technology through the design of energy consuming products. He said:
“As a responsible company and because our customers demand it, we are addressing energy consumption by focusing on ways to improve our products and help customers be more energy efficient.
Speeding up the process
‘At any time, HP has approximately 1000 Energy Star® compliant products on the market. We have a global Product Energy Efficiency Team working with HP Labs to speed up the adoption of new and promising, energy-saving technologies.
‘Our Halo video conferencing technology also makes remote meetings more productive whilst saving time, money and energy which would otherwise be spent on business travel.”
Addressing the challenges
Hans Wendschlag, Nordic environmental business manager, continued the roundtable presentations by addressing the challenges of energy efficiency faced by governments, businesses and customers.
With no official IT industry standards available on energy efficiency and a lack of succinct product labelling standardisation, businesses and customers find it hard to make informed purchasing decisions. Enterprise and public sector customers have varied requirements for energy efficient products and therefore different expectations.
High profile debate
HP is working closely with industry policy-makers and governments to help them meet these challenges head on. By increasing their understanding of energy efficiency and highlighting the need for standardisation and harmonisation, HP is giving the topic of energy efficiency as high a profile as possible to keep the debate moving forwards.
It is not surprising therefore that, with international media coverage, the debate continued in the Financial Times, Der Standard, Computerworld…
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