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

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