Hewlett-Packard's approach to creating a life cycle (product stewardship) program

Abstract

Hewlett Packard (HP) view product stewardship as a philosophy and practice of designing products and their associated accessories and processes to prevent and/or minimize adverse health, safety and ecological impacts throughout their life cycle, i.e., design, manufacture, distribution, use, take-back, disassembly, reuse, recycling and ultimate disposition of constituent parts and materials. Thus, HP's environmental program has expanded its focus beyond manufacturing facilities to also consider product shipment, use by the customer and eventual disposition at the end of the product's useful life. Also taken into account are the possible environmental impacts that may occur upstream with respect to HP's suppliers' manufacture of materials, parts and components used in HP's products. This new product stewardship philosophy represents a major change in perspective and is bringing attention to the fact that much, and often most, of the environmental impacts associated with products occur beyond manufacturing facilities. >