Our Future: Bound to the Health of Planet Earth

By Gary Tierney, Managing Director at HP Ireland, who looks at the future and how we can potentially impact more positively on planet earth.

As COVID-19 swept across the globe, a small silver lining emerged – the realisation of our planet’s ability to quickly heal. As businesses temporarily shut their doors and people sheltered at home, changes to Earth’s atmosphere caused by a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants were so significant they became visible from space.

In April, at the height of the pandemic, data from the Irish National Seismic Network (INSN) revealed that human-induced ground vibrations were three times lower than they were before the Government’s restrictions on movement were introduced.

Due to this sudden slowdown, largely caused by the closure of schools, restaurants and other public venues, as well as the blanket ban all non-essential travel, carbon emissions in Ireland are on track to drop 9.5% this year – the largest reduction since the 2008 financial crash.

The pandemic has held a mirror to the immense man-made impact human activity has on our planet. But the Earth’s remarkable recovery should be met with a call to action. While we have experienced a drop in carbon emissions, the ESRI expects this reduction to be short lived as low energy prices increase demand and emissions rise again in 2021. Based on current trajectories, Ireland is still on track to miss its 2030 carbon-reducing emission targets. But the short pollutant reprieve stimulated by COVID-19 has shown us what is possible.

Sustainable Impact

True sustainable impact starts with understanding how people, planet and community are intertwined. The virus itself is a prime example as new research draws a link between air pollution levels and the fatality rate of COVID-19. The study of four European countries found that 78 percent of COVID-related deaths occurred in just five regions in Italy and Spain – areas that had high concentrations of nitrogen dioxide, a harmful respiratory pollutant.

Similar preliminary findings have emerged in the U.S. and China, highlighting that the devastating impact we have on our planet has a reciprocal and equally detrimental impact on our health and wellbeing.

Simply put, healthier environments lead to healthier people. According to the UN Environment Programme, clean air, water and sanitisation, as well as protected green areas and safer workspaces cause reduced mortality and morbidity, improved productivity of workers, and a better quality of life for women, children and the elderly. The effect of improving the environment is cyclical,  and because our people, our planet and our communities are inseparable, our solutions must also be holistic.

Businesses, governments and individuals all have a part to play. By making better decisions, implementing the right policies and practices, and deploying the right technology to bind our efforts together, we can and will make a difference.

Building A Circular Economy

One key area for collaboration is helping drive more circular manufacturing models.

When it comes to recycling and product waste, consumers already grasp what it means to place a plastic bottle in a bin – with a recent survey by energy group SaveOnEnergy finding that Ireland is the most recycling-minded country in the EU. While the public attitude is there, the need to do something beyond simple customer recycling is urgent. For instance, at the current rate, the volume of global plastic is expected to outweigh all the fish in our oceans by 2050.

The onus is on businesses to either move away from plastic all together, or ensure more recycled plastic is used in their supply chains – ensuring virgin materials are no longer being put into the environment. In turn, by making clear the sustainable steps they are taking, businesses can further educate consumers and win over an increasingly environmentally-concerned audience.

For example, at HP, we are playing our part in driving a circular economy by sourcing more than 60 million ocean-bound plastic bottles for use in our products. Since 2017, we have used plastic collected in Haiti to make ink cartridges, ensuring more than 35 million plastic bottles have been removed from the environment and used in our products instead. We have also committed to eliminating 75% of our single-use plastic packaging across all our products, using paper-based pulp instead – a goal we hope to achieve by 2025.

While we have come a long way, HP recognises that more needs to be done. We can’t do it alone, no company can, which is why we need to elevate the conversation and promote collaboration to drive meaningful and lasting change. What’s more, it makes increasingly business sense to do so.

According to the 2019 PwC Retail Consumer Report, 41% of Irish consumers are prepared to pay a premium price for sustainable products, with 32% of respondents choosing sustainable products in order to help protect the environment, and 52% doing so in order to avoid the use of plastic when they can. Indeed, HP recorded over $1.6bn in new sales where sustainability was a factor in 2019, a 69% increase year over year.

The opportunity to make a real and lasting difference is all around us. With the world seeking its ‘new normal’, there has never been a better time to not only imagine the future we want to create, but to start building it together.

More about Irish Tech News and Business Showcase here.

FYI the ROI for you is => Irish Tech News now gets over 1.5 million monthly views, and up to 900k monthly unique visitors, from over 160 countries. We have over 860,000 relevant followers on Twitter on our various accounts & were recently described as Ireland’s leading online tech news site and Ireland’s answer to TechCrunch, so we can offer you a good audience!

Since introducing desktop notifications a short time ago, which notify readers directly in their browser of new articles being published, over 50,000 people have now signed up to receive them ensuring they are instantly kept up to date on all our latest content. Desktop notifications offer a unique method of serving content directly to verified readers and bypass the issue of content getting lost in people’s crowded news feeds.

Drop us a line if you want to be featured, guest post, suggest a possible interview or just let us know what you would like to see more of in our future articles. We’re always open to new and interesting suggestions for informative and different articles.

If you would like to be featured in our podcast series drop us a line & don’t forget to sign up for notifications for our latest episodes and follow us on Twitter, Linkedin, SoundCloud, iTunes or your own favourite podcast platform.

Contact us, by email, twitter or whatever social media works for you and hopefully, we can share your story too and reach our global audience. We are agile, responsive, quick and talented, we look forward to working with you!

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at Simon@IrishTechNews.ie or on Twitter: @SimonCocking