How HP Inc uses Chemical Watch News & Insight to ensure product compliance worldwide

US-based personal computing and printing multinational HP Inc recorded total revenues of close to $63bn in 2022. With two-thirds of sales coming from outside of the US, ensuring worldwide compliance is critical for the business.  

As chemicals and materials compliance manager, Àlvar Sala oversees a 12-strong global team tasked with achieving HP Inc’s compliance goals and keeping the company several steps ahead of regulatory changes. The team handles chemicals management for HP Inc’s printing and supplies business and materials compliance for its hardware business.   

Chemical Watch News & Insight is an essential tool. It helps HP Inc ensure compliance globally, stay ahead of future regulatory challenges and, increasingly, helps informs the company’s sustainability strategy. Here, Sala shares how.  

The key challenges – staying ahead

As a business that places the same products in all its markets, ensuring worldwide compliance for all its products is a primary goal for HP Inc. “That is clearly a challenge because some countries are more transparent and predictable than others,” says Sala.  

“Regulations can pop up quickly, giving us less time to adapt to the changes and to do advocacy. It also makes compliance more complicated.”  

The increasing volume of regulation is another challenge. “The regulatory landscape for chemicals and for materials is forever growing and changing so you need to be up to date and able to inform the business as quickly as possible,” he says.  

“The more time management has to adapt to regulatory changes, the better it is for the business,” says Sala. “It allows us to change complex formulations in time or to make necessary materials changes to products. That’s why we need Chemical Watch News & Insight – to stay fully up to date and give the business the most time possible to adapt.”

How HP Inc uses Chemical Watch News & Insight to drive business strategy

Sala and his team rely on Chemical Watch News & Insight to provide essential background information and a horizon-scanning perspective on regulatory developments. The team makes use of the weekly alerts and lens functionality to stay informed.

“I enjoy reading the in-depth interviews with relevant stakeholders, it’s valuable to hear how people are thinking to better understand what’s coming up in the future. I also value the opinions of regulatory authorities, industry or trade associations shared in news stories – it’s useful for helping to understand the new development or regulation.”

By understanding the regulatory outlook, the compliance function has a key role in helping to drive HP Inc business strategy. The team shares Chemical Watch News & Insight articles internally to help build the case for product adjustments which is especially important when the regulatory change is some way off.

“Management is sometimes uncertain about the guidance we give as a compliance team because they don’t see it happening in the market yet and customers are not yet asking about it,” Sala says.

“In those cases, we share Chemical Watch News & Insight articles for context, so they see a respectable and well-known news source explaining the change and hear people in the industry commenting. In that way they understand the development is a whole industry problem to be worked on. It helps to avoid problems in the future.”

Helping to drive sustainability in HP products

HP Inc’s chemicals and materials compliance function sits within the broader sustainability team, with a collective goal to drive sustainability. Chemical Watch News & Insight information is used as a catalyst to drive initiatives and advocate for change.  

“Previously, Chemical Watch News & Insight was just used by the compliance teams but now other teams with responsibilities for sustainability, such as product stewardship, use the service more and more,” says Sala.  

“The information helps the business allocate resources to apply the necessary changes to products and to adapt as soon as possible,” he says. “I no longer see Chemical Watch News & Insight as just a compliance tool. Understanding the regulatory trends is useful across the broad scope of business functions.”