HP Responsible Business Award Winner
Estonian Team, VOLLI wins the HP Responsible Business Award
"HP Responsible Business Award" launched during JA-YE's Company Competition in Interlaken
Geneva/Interlaken Switzerland, 6 August 2006 - HP Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) and Junior Achievement-Young Enterprise (JA-YE) Europe awarded the first winner of the Responsible Business Award to the Estonian team VOLLI. They created trendy, modern, light and comfortable wallets made of empty, used juice-cartons.
"Thinking green is very important nowadays and we are hoping to make it a trend. We want to make the idea of recycling an important part of the Estonian lifestyle, since recycling and re-usage of materials is quite a new habit in the Baltic states. Not only that we produce an environmentally friendly product but we also help various institutions with the mission of sustainable development to reach our common target group. We helped them to spread the so-called "green message" as well as the ideas we both share,"
said Sander Saar, 17 years old, the managing director of VOLLI student company.
Honourable Mention went to “SPEED(I)!” from Latvia, for their reflectors made of recycled materials and “CPPN” from Poland for their “Cafeteria next to the teacher’s room”.
"HP believes that a successful company today needs to achieve more than just strong financial performance. A successful company needs to demonstrate social and environmental leadership and make this part of its business strategy," said Gabriele Zedlmayer, vice president of Corporate Marketing and Global Citizenship, HP EMEA.
The "HP Responsible Business Award" aims to build awareness of social and environmental responsibility and responsible business leadership skills among students across EMEA. The Award is an extension of the existing JA-YE "Annual Company of the Year Competition" which gives students aged 14-18 the opportunity to prepare for working life through the experience of running their own company.
During the first year, HP and JA-YE will develop awareness-raising tools such as websites and mentoring, as well as online training modules to educate students about corporate social responsibility in the ten participating countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden and the UK.
In addition, HP volunteers across EMEA will be available to advise students on how to make their businesses more socially responsible and environmentally friendly.
The new annual HP Responsible Business Award will be given to student companies, that do the best job at integrating the following criteria:
- Strong financial performance: showing the ability to be profitable and competitive, bring benefits to shareholders and secure long-term growth and job security.
- Social responsibility: meeting the wider concerns of stakeholders such as employees, suppliers, customers and local communities
- Environmental excellence: preventing pollution, optimizing resource efficiency and developing products with minimal environmental impacts.
Students will also have the opportunity to compete "online" with their Responsible Business ideas. The first top 10 will be awarded in 2007.
About JA-YE Europe
JA-YE Europe (www.ja-ye.org) is Europe’s largest provider of enterprise education programmes, reaching 1,7 million students in 41 countries in 2005. Funded by businesses, institutions, foundations and individuals, JA-YE brings the public and private sectors together to provide young people in primary and secondary schools and early university with high-quality education programmes to teach them about enterprise, entrepreneurship, business and economics in a practical way. The JA-YE Company Programme is recognised by the European Commission Enterprise Directorate General as a ‘Best Practice in Entrepreneurship Education’.
About HP
HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally. The company’s offerings span IT infrastructure, global services, business and home computing, and imaging and printing. For the four fiscal quarters ended April 30, 2006, HP revenue totaled $88.9 billion. More information about HP (NYSE, Nasdaq: HPQ) is available at www.hp.com.
Editorial contacts:
Claudia Martens
Hewlett-Packard Company
Tel: +43 3135 2000 2221
claudia.martens@hp.com
Diana Filip
JA-YE
Tel: 0032 2 626 6174
diana@ja-ye.org