Meeting the Moment: Driving collective action to counter the climate crisis
The Paris Agreement marked a turning point in collective climate action. As we celebrate its 5th anniversary on December 12, we need only look to the global response to COVID-19 – from the sacrifices made individually to the race to a vaccine – to believe that swift change is possible when we all focus on a common goal. HP is proud to sign on to America Is All In, a joint declaration of support for climate action, signed by more than 1,500 leaders.
While progress has been made since that historic day in 2015 when 196 countries came together to adopt the Paris Agreement, our changing climate tells us our actions must go deeper, our pace must go faster, and our commitment must encompass a much broader swath of actors from business, government and society. Data from a recent analysis shows the average global land and ocean surface temperature for September was the highest in the 141-year record, surpassing the previous record set in 2015. This is truly an all-hands-on-deck moment.
Like COVID-19, climate change disproportionately impacts communities of color and lower-income households around the world. It’s essential that we approach climate action from the standpoint of inclusion and justice to remedy disparities and ensure solutions are felt equally.
Business has an essential role to play, and it’s no longer a choice between doing well and doing good. We know firsthand that it’s possible to do both. To help accelerate action, we need governments to enact bold, ambitious climate policies. The latest statement by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, which HP has also signed on to, signals this urgency as well as the desire for public-private partnerships.
Recently named to CDP’s Climate A List for the 7th year in a row, HP’s commitment to climate action is unwavering. We’re giving confidence to investors through our impact and transparency, while offering consumers more sustainable choices and helping customers advance their climate goals – from creating the world’s most sustainable PC portfolio to launching the most comprehensive carbon-neutral printing solution.
These ripple effects are key, and so is minimizing our own footprint. We’re transforming our business by reducing climate impacts across our value chain, investing in renewable energy, setting science-based GHG emissions reduction goals, and transparently reporting on our progress. As of 2019, we achieved 43% renewable electricity usage across our global operations and are more than halfway to achieving our goal of reducing product-use GHG emissions intensity by 30% by 2025.
Luckily, we still have nature on our side. Forests can provide a remarkable antidote to climate change when key ecosystems are protected and restored, as we are doing across 200,000 acres in Brazil and China through the HP Sustainable Forests Collaborative. This year, we also teamed up with the Arbor Day Foundation to plant one million trees in support of 1t.org, a World Economic Forum initiative to conserve, restore, and grow one trillion trees globally.
Our oceans are similar climate heroes by storing more carbon than they release. We’re protecting them from invading plastics – to the tune of 1.7 million pounds to date – by sourcing ocean-bound plastics for use in our products. We can respect nature and protect our climate by ensuring valuable resources are not lost. That’s why we’re striving to increase recycled content in our products to 30% and eliminate 75% of single-use plastic from our packaging by 2025.
The partnerships we’ve forged have made this progress possible, and as we look ahead to what must be done, we know new and innovative collaborations will be vital. Together we can harness nature-based solutions, transform our businesses, and empower those throughout the value chain to do the same.
Just as we supported the Paris Agreement from its inception, HP is entering the decisive decade for climate action with the will to succeed. HP was recently ranked #1 on Newsweek’s “America’s Most Responsible Companies” list for the second year in a row. I couldn’t be prouder to be part of this best-in-class team delivering innovations that advance our company’s sustainable impact goals and empower those across our value chain to do so as well. Yet while much progress has been made, we have a long way to go. To address the complex challenges facing our society we must continue setting our sights higher and aiming for more ambitious targets to achieve maximum impact together.
The future depends on each moment and every decision. Will we harness the collective spirit that, at its best, has protected our most vulnerable and accelerated scientific breakthroughs? We must. We cannot miss this moment to act decisively on climate.