New York, NY -- We have written a lot about the greening of the printer industry and how it is has an impact on consumers. This piece we came across written by Jamison Cush of Printer Comparison.com had some thought provoking considerations that we wanted to share. He cautions against believing a company that goes green suddenly will stay green. His focus was to: “look beyond the PR machine and analyze products, policies and corporate culture, to find out which companies will still sport eco-style when – or if – it goes out of style.”
HP
The first company Cush examined was Hewlett-Packard. As he notes and we have noted in other articles, HP has been doing environmentally conscious things since the 1950s, and thus have a proven track record of consistently being eco-friendly. In 1992, they launched the “Design for Environment” initiative to “ ‘product energy efficiency, materials innovation and design for recyclability to reduce the quantity and environmental impact of the materials in our [HP] products’”, which Cush pulled from their website.
Now, with their company firmly entrenched in green practices they appear to be constantly one-upping themselves. They have an excellent toner recycling program, they are making printers out of more and more recycled materials, and just recently they have developed and released a new LaserJet Series, the Pro P1100 printers, which are supposed to be “‘most energy-efficient laser printer on the planet.’” This series features an automatic power on and off capability that cuts way down on the power consumed: up to 250 watts when printing, 20 to 30 when in ready mode, 3 or 4 watts in sleep mode, and under a watt when off.
HP has also developed printer drivers that install automatically without even needing a CD. CDs present their own recycling dilemma as Cush discovered at the CD Recycling Center of America. According to them, Cush says, “More than 100,000 pounds of CDs become obsolete each month.” Lastly, HP’s Smart Web Printing is a plug-in that allows users to select just the portions of a webpage which they need.
Further on in the article, Cush does an analysis for the consumer of how they can tell about a company’s green-ness. The first suggestion Cush has is to look at the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. They are an organization dedicated to reducing the environmental impact of companies worldwide. It was begun by Google and Intel in 2007 and to be a member company of the board of directors, they must “commit to purchase energy-efficient systems and use power management.”
Cush also advises to look beyond the hype of marketing and go to a company’s website to check it out for yourself. Any company who has done any greening is likely to be very proud of it and display those practices. Take a close look at the products a company produces as well. Looking at their energy consumption can be a giveaway as to how green they really are.
