Energy star was set up in 1992, but the programme has only been fully operational for 12 months. While awareness of the programme is growing, few computers in Hong Kong can be described as being in any way ''green''.

Many people leave their PCs turned on all the time, in part to avoid wear on components, and often to avoid mildew attacking the disk drives in the sticky sub-tropical climate.

Research has shown that, even during working time, few people actually use their computers for more than three hours in a day.

But while those PCs are running, if they are not energy star compliant they are running at full power. Also, the ubiquitous screen-saver programs, beaming dinosaurs and the Starship Enterprise all around the city, do not save anything at all.

In fact, a screen-saver can use up to 20 per cent more power than a screen left blank.

HP's product stewardship programme is the firm's response to consumer demands for more environmentally friendly products.

The aim of the programme is to follow a product throughout its life cycle, thus finding ways to minimise the negative effects any product may have on the environment.

In manufacturing, HP has cut the amount of chemical waste produced at their plants by 76 per cent between 1987 and 1992.

They have also eliminated the use of all chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and methyl chloroform (TCA) from the manufacturing process. CFCs and TCA are known to cause significant damage to the earth's ozone layer.

HP has also introduced large-scale recycling of both factory and office waste.

One of HP's larger plants reduced water usage by 31 million litres after it redesigned the circuit board cleaning process.

Computer vendors often package their products with a lot of unnecessary items. HP uses corrugated, non-bleached cardboard in its packaging. Service manuals are now being printed on recycled paper, with non-toxic biodegradable ink, and without metal or plastic binding, to aid eventual recycling.

In one year, HP's copier plants recycled 3.5 million kilograms of waste.

However, recycling can apply to more than just paper and plastic. The company's European, Australian and north American factories all recycle old computers. In addition to dismantling and reusing materials from HP products, they will also accept products from other manufacturers.

The process, rather than being just a publicity stunt, actually earns HP money.

However, like most companies, HP has no plans to start a buy-back or computer recycling programme in Hong Kong.

HP's latest range of PCs, the Vectra series, has been designed with networks in mind.

Although networks have evolved with specific purposes, none of which is environmentalism, an indirect benefit of installing a network is the energy saved.

Unlike a stand-alone PC, a workstation on a network has few data storage demands.

Functions and information can be pooled between a number of workstations, thereby giving each one less work than a stand-alone version would have to cope with.

As the world's leading vendor of inkjet and laser printers, HP is not only developing EPA-standard PCs. While the guidelines call for all one to 14 page printers to consume no more than 30 watts, HP DeskJet and DeskWriter each use only eight watts, while the LaserJet uses five watts.

All printers can use recycled paper and toner cartridges have been designed so that they can be recycled when used. All plastic parts are marked with the ISO stamp for easy identification when they are eventually dismantled.