Industry Voice: From OEM to End User: Ensuring the Print Supplies Channel is Secure and Sustainable

How to prevent trade-offs between protecting customers and protecting the environment

For any organisation, whether public or private sector, planning and implementing for sustainability is now par for the course when it comes to everyday business practices – and that includes the print supplies used by employees. It is increasingly important for vendors to support their customers in finding and making sustainable choices, while at the same time ensuring that no compromises are made when it comes to security, product performance or value.

It falls to OEMs to ensure products contribute to a sustainable and secure print supply chain, while always pushing for a more circular supplies economy. Achieving this is often a complex and gradual process, but one where OEMs, distributors and partner resellers in the printing sector can collaborate to provide security and sustainability support for the end user.

Protecting the Supply Chain from Counterfeit Supplies

To safeguard the integrity of the print supply chain, OEMs and distributors must be committed to security by ensuring customers receive authentic products while intercepting the many counterfeit items that flood the market. Counterfeiters continue to find new ways to create fraudulent items, and end users are finding it increasingly difficult to tell real products from fakes. To protect unsuspecting users from the damages these replica products can cause to printers and the substandard end-product, it's vital that OEMs and their distributors work together to keep the supply chain secure.

Between November 2022 and October 2023, the HP Anti-Counterfeiting and Fraud (ACF) team confiscated over 2.1M fraudulent print products, parts, and components – including large numbers of ink and toner cartridges – in operations across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Asia-Pacific (APAC) and the Americas. What's more, in 2023, HP helped to delist more than 230,000 counterfeit products worldwide, working with online marketplaces and other third-party organisations to scan for infringing products, delist them from online stores, and ban sellers from affected sites. All this was achieved in tandem with law enforcement and stringent global measures.

Embedding Sustainability

The environmental impact of using counterfeits is also problematic, given they have of course not been designed with sustainable criteria in mind. That's because designing, building, and recycling sustainable products is complex and demanding, and requires significant investment. Weeding out counterfeit products therefore has the added benefit of bolstering the sustainability of the supply chain, as well shoring up customer security.

In this era of environmental awareness, OEMs must help drive sustainable goals beyond just energy conservation to encompass the complete life cycle of print products and supplies. Over the past decade, there has been a steady increase in the proportion of sustainability-related criteria in business procurement tenders, which has of course raised the bar for partners in winning new customers. This shows that there is a demand from customers to improve the sustainability of supply chains and strengthen the circular economy of their business products – of course, without compromising on product quality.

This is a scenario where OEMs can help boost their reseller partner's credentials. One example of an established sustainability initiative in the supply chain is HP's Planet Partners recycling programme, which has now been operating for over three decades. The programme offers free and convenient recycling of used HP components to global customers. To date, more than 1 billion Original HP Ink and Toner Cartridges have been recycled by customers through the programme. HPs Instant Ink subscription customers also benefit from the Planet Partners programme, as all cartridges returned using the prepaid envelopes are automatically sent for recycling.

This programme has been able to support the development an innovative print solution, EvoCycle – a new print toner cartridge composed of 76% recycled and repurposed original HP components. By using 100% close-loop recycled plastic from returned HP cartridges and with recycling, manufacturing and distribution all taking place in Europe, EvoCycle Cartridges can drive lower environmental and social impact. Third-party assessments, as well as reseller partners, confirm that more sustainable products like EvoCycle can deliver the same high-level performance, quality, and reliability as standard HP toner cartridge. It's a great example of how, by moving away from a linear ‘take, make, use, and dispose' approach and adopting a ‘reduce, reuse and recycle' approach, more sustainable products can directly support a circular economy.

Only Customer Choices Can Drive Long-Term Sustainability

Protecting the environment is the definition of playing the long game, but OEMs, distributors and reseller partners must help end users make more sustainable business procurement decisions today. We cannot overlook the extensive environmental implications of procurement tenders that extend far into the future but are for products that are not best-in-class for sustainability. It is a collective responsibility to improve the environmental credentials of products and services that are available to customers now and make these credentials as important as the print quality they rightly demand.

This collaboration is the most effective way to drive customers to make better, more sustainable product choices. As we move further into 2024, where security and sustainability will continue to be a key priority for all businesses – there is a clear opportunity to empower customers to make the right decisions for print supplies and beyond.

This Article is sponsored by HP