HP Shows the SmartWay to Greener Supply Chain

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In 2004, The US Environmental Protection Agency launched SmartWay^SM — a brand to represent environmentally cleaner, more fuel efficient transportation options.

The SmartWay program identifies products and services that reduce transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions. It signifies a partnership among government, business and consumers to protect our environment, reduce fuel consumption, and improve our air quality for future generations.

HP has qualified it's business PC, printing and server products shipped throughout Canada and USA according to the SmartWay initiative. In April 2008, HP certified to EPA satisfaction that its surface transportation carrier network for consumer accessories, desktop and monitor products was composed completely of SmartWay-compliant carriers. Now, HP announced its certification of for business desktops, monitors, notebooks, servers, storage, thin clients and workstations, all imaging and printing devices.

SmartWay Transport Partners must measure their current environmental performance with the SmartWay Transport F.L.E.E.T. (Fleet Logistics Energy and Environmental Tracking) Performance Model for carriers, commit to improving that performance within three years and sign the SmartWay Transport Partnership Agreement. Serving some 210,000 partners and retailers meant that getting all the carriers involved in HP retail logistics is a very substantial endeavor. 

In addition to meeting these requirements, HP undertook a thorough assessment of logistics providers for its business and enterprise products, working with them to meet the EPA requirements and changing partners that would not comply. As a result, 100 percent of the carriers for these products are now SmartWay partners, qualifying the products to carry the SmartWay logo.

This is the first I've heard of SmartWay which provides marketing benefits to transportation companies and their customers that commit to improving energy consumption and reducing greenhouse gas production.

For consumers, the SmartWay website includes a sophisticated feature comparison database so you can consider the different environmental features of 3 out of dozens of new and used cars and trucks. Features like Air Pollution Score, Greenhouse Gas Score, City Fuel Economy, Highway Fuel Economy, Fuel Consumption, Estimated Annual Fuel Cost, and Emissions Certification Standard achieved.

These are all statistics that are readily available from each manufacturer, but what's particularly nice is that they're all on the same page, in easy to compare presentation.