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The Eco-Highlights label on HP products gives consumers details on energy consumption and the recyclability of the product.

The layout of the label will be familiar to shoppers as it looks very similar to the food labels we see in the grocery store.

“When you compare 2 printers, you can look not only at what they do, but you’ll understand the environmental footprint as well,” says Vernon Coutinho of HP Canada.

The environmental initiative is not something new to HP, there have been internal recycling efforts ongoing for nearly 20 years and for more than 10 at the consumer level – HP is just adding things like the Eco-Highlights label to bring more awareness to environmental conscious consumers.

That label is the thing consumers will see when they buy an HP product, but there's an entire backstory that's not seen.

"It's getting confusing, you walk in to a store and everything is green," admits Coutinho. "We don't even call any of our products green," he says adding the moniker has lots resonance and meaning in the marketplace.  That's not to say the HP values are going against Al Gore, to the contrary, they're very aggressive and innovative when it comes to environmentally responsible efforts.

From manufacturing to packaging to shipping and recycling, HP is making efforts to minimize the footprint left behind at all stages of the consumer product process.  HP also employs something that Coutinho calls "closed loop manufacturing." This process has HP taking back a product and doesnt recycle elsewhere, but instead recycles it into it's own manufacturing stream.