HPE is one of the vendors setting the pace on this year’s red-hot topic of sustainability – and TD SYNNEX is also forging ahead with its own plans to reduce its carbon footprint and make its business more sustainable. It’s a vitally important topic and one that the whole channel needs to address, says Gareth Bevan, Sustainable Transformation Programme Manager at HPE.
‘Climate change poses an existential threat— not just to our environment, but to our health, communities, global economy, and local business operations. As demand for products and services continues to increase exponentially, HPE believes that solutions to the climate crisis lie within innovations and standards that we develop and drive with our supply chain partners.
‘Throughout the last years, HPE has made manifold efforts to address sustainability concerns and our work is far from done. We hope to further cultivate conversations and catalyse the IT industry and beyond through ensuring accountability within HPE’s own supply chain, expanding our capability-building programs, and setting the standard for supplier GHG engagement and abatement. We are prepared to meet the challenges that lie ahead.’
Kevin Wragg, who was appointed to the newly-created role of director environment and quality compliance at TD SYNNEX, agrees – and emphasis on the company’s commitment to following the lead that HPE and others are taking in the IT industry.
‘TD SYNNEX is fully committed to being a net zero carbon employer and business partner. Working with our ESG consultants we are currently following the Greenhouse Gas Protocol scopes 1 through 3, and we look forward to making a number of important announcements this year regarding our carbon position as well as our local and global commitment to science-based targets.’
In this article we look at the efforts HPE is making to drive sustainability and lower carbon emissions – in its own business and across the supply chain. These focus on four key areas – set out below.
If you are looking to define and set your own sustainability and net carbon zero goals, TD SYNNEX and HPE will be able to provide you with help and guidance on how to get started. Just get in contact by scrolling down and submitting the form at the end of this article. Or you can email hpesales@tdsynnex.com and visit HPE’s sustainable IT website at https://www.hpe.com/us/en/living-progress/sustainable-it.html or email sustainability@hpe.com.
TD SYNNEX is fully committed to being a net zero carbon employer and business partner
Reducing manufacturing and supply chain emissions
The company is committed to becoming carbon neutral across its entire value chain by 2050, with the following intermediate targets set for 2025:
- 50% of total electricity consumption in operations sourced from renewables
- 15% reduction in supply chain manufacturing-related emissions from 2016 levels. (Achieved 2019)
- 55% reduction in operational greenhouse emissions from 2016 levels (Achieved 2020).
- 30x increase in the energy performance of its product portfolio, from 2015 baseline.
These were set out some time ago and with two of the four goals already achieved, HPE has set about reassessing with a view to sharing updated targets by June 2022.
HPE’s has had a distinct focus on sustainability for some time. As long ago as 2017, it created a comprehensive programme, complete with Scope 3 targets approved by the Science based Target Initiative (SBTi) to reduce the impact of its manufacturing supply chain.
As we can see from the second point, HPE has already made good progress here and is already going further, partnering with suppliers with the goal of having 80% of its production suppliers – by spend – setting their own science-based targets (SBTs) by 2025. This is significant as almost one-third of HPE’s total carbon footprint is generated through the manufacture of its products and if it can also encourage its suppliers to reduce their own impacts, the effects will multiple and ripple through the wider supply chain.
HPE’s shift to as-a-service revenue models is central to its climate goals
Making power-efficient patents available
Another element of HPE’s activity is the Low-Carbon Patent Pledge that it made effective from April 2021. This initiative – launched jointly with Microsoft, and Facebook, made hundreds of key patents available, royalty-free, with the aim of accelerating adoption of low-carbon technologies.
These patents cover a broad range of technologies that can help combat climate change through effective power management, enablement of zero-carbon energy sources, efficient data centre architecture, and thermal management.
HPE has already made good progress here and is already going further
Shifting to as-a-service
HPE’s shift to as-a-service revenue models is central to its climate goals. The company has loudly proclaimed its intent to transform and is committed to making its entire portfolio available as a service this year. HPE sees this as the way to build a more lasting engagement with customers and at the same time, advance sustainability in IT significantly.
There are three main sustainable outcomes from as-as-service:
- The elimination of over-provisioning. According to HPE, in the average data center, 25% of resources are not doing useful work and the remaining resources are operating at a small fraction of their capacity. This means higher costs and unnecessary consumption of power, space, and cooling.
- Organisations will no longer need to use IT equipment for the whole of its lifecycle. Systems can be upgraded rapidly to the latest, more energy-efficient technologies. The inefficiencies of ageing equipment mean that 65% of the power used by IT in data centres is used to process just 7% of the work.
- Taking back IT assets at the end of their use. HPE Financial Services now has options that enable customers to extend the life of retired IT equipment and reuse and re-manufacture components for a second life. Customers get a residual value from assets and equipment can also be sent for refurbishment or ‘upcycling’, reducing carbon emissions, and keeping e-waste out of landfills.
This is already working well. In 2020, more than 1.7 million items of data centre equipment and 1.4 million endpoint devices and printers were processed. HPE says that close to 90% of this equipment is remarketed and returned to active use; the rest is recycled responsibly. HPE can also provide customers with their own Circular Economy report, detailing environmental impact savings such as energy saved, CO2 avoided, and waste kept from landfills through recycling.
Advancing with GreenLake
An integral part of the above point is the advances HPE is making with the GreenLake consumption-based proposition for IT infrastructure. Matching workloads with the consumption customers need, eliminates over-provisioning, drives energy efficiency, and helps customers optimise value of existing assets, helping to fund transformation.
Key benefits of GreenLake include:
- 30% capex savings from eliminated over-provisioning
- Energy efficiency gains from tech refreshes
- Near-real time usage information for higher utilisation
Contact the Team
HPE has a team of people in the UK ready to help partners have conversations with their customers on sustainability. Speak to a member of the UK HPE Team at TD SYNNEX today at hpesales@techdata.com. Or complete and submit the form below.
Alternatively, you can visit HPE’s sustainable IT website at https://www.hpe.com/us/en/living-progress/sustaina... or email sustainability@hpe.com.
