HP Wants You to Turn off Your PC

Hewlett-Packard launched a campaign on Wednesday to get people to shut off their computers when not in use in order to conserve energy.

As part of its Power to Change (P2C) campaign, HP has developed a downloadable widget that helps users understand the savings that can be gained by simply turning off their computers, according to Klaus Hieronymi, director of Environmental Business Management at HP Europe.

The purpose of the application is to monitor the computer's idle time, allowing HP to calculate the energy wasted, according to the Power to Change web site.

Companies buying new, greener products won't be enough to help combat climate change and cut energy bills, Hieronymi said. Users will also have to change their habits, he said.

According to a study by the Berkeley National Labs, 64 percent of business desktop users and 24 percent of laptop users don't switch of their computers at the end of the day or when they don't need it anymore, Hieronymi said.

HP estimates that 100,000 users shutting down their work computers at the end of each day would be the equivalent of eliminating about 105 cars from the road each day.

HP is also updating some of the management tools it offers companies that want to go green and or cut energy costs. Using HP Web Jetadmin -- a management tool for controlling printing costs -- companies can now get reports on how many pages that have been printed on both sides. Also, an updated version of HP's carbon footprint calculator will be easier to use.

HP is also making the printers more environmentally friendly. On June 1 it started selling three HP Deskjet printers that are manufactured using between 25 to 50 percent recycled materials.

On the server side, the company introduced the ProLiant DL1000 Multi-Node series, which beats the Dell R610 by a margin of 30 percent when comparing energy use at peak load, according to HP.