The recipe for a circular economy: Bold steps and strong partnerships

Ever since Gaylord Nelson coined the catchphrase when he founded Earth Day more than half a century ago, “reduce, reuse, recycle” still rings true to this day. Despite cynics and critics, that spirit continues to pervade our belief, that we have the power to advance our civilization technologically, while leaving light footprints. We need that kind of balanced, practical optimism, if we are to work together to transition to a more circular economy.???

Following?COP26?climate summit?back in November,?the UN-convened Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report?reminded us of the urgent need for swift action on the environment. The report?warns?that unless global greenhouse gas emissions are cut nearly in half by 2030, the world will likely experience?catastrophic weather events.

In response, many governments and the private sector have stepped up efforts to?avoid an environmental tragedy.?Take our company’s diversification from fossil fuel for example; Lenovo is?transitioning?to renewable energy. At many of our facilities, we’re drawing on renewable energy from owned or leased solar hot water facilities and solar electric generation installations around the world.?

While we should do all we can to balance our energy sources, alternative power sources only address about 55% of global emissions. The?remaining 45%?are?generated from the production of everyday items. Reducing these?emissions?requires?addressing?the mining, production and disposal of goods.??

However, many companies and nations are struggling in the transition, and do not have the requisite resources to practically leverage technology for sustainability.?To?overcome?these challenges, we must work together to embed sustainability deeper into the full technology value chain.??

Device-as-a-Service: Better for business; better for the environment

That’s where the recent, global?shift to a?more?circular economy?comes in. A circular economy is?one designed to recycle, reuse,?and repair?goods, thereby?sharply reducing waste. In the technology sector, this is taking the form of a new consumption model called Device-as-a-Service, or DaaS.

DaaS allow businesses to pay only for the devices and services they use. This model frees them from the burden of end-of-lifecycle disposal, while also eliminating the need for a heavy upfront investment of capital.?

Through DaaS, customers pay to use their choice of devices as they need them, with the option of pausing or returning a device when it is not in use. Ultimately, when a device reaches the end of its lifecycle, it is collected, securely cleared of any remaining data, and recycled or repurposed —either by refurbishing and reusing it in a new work environment or using its parts to repair other devices.?

At Lenovo, by enabling our?customers to?responsibly dispose?of?and generate value for any hardware, we?aim to remove one million tons of greenhouse gas emissions from?our?supply chain by FY2025/26.?

Businesses are quickly adopting this model because of its economic and environmental benefits. As an example, a large professional services firm recently chose Lenovo to manage the deployment of more than 10,000 devices across their workforce, from laptop to meeting rooms, over a dozen office locations, using our as-a-service model. In addition?to?numerous financial advantages, this approach gives our customer the confidence to know they will divest every device responsibly when they reach the end of their lifecycle, without creating any electronic waste.

Seeding?Sustainability?Into the Supply Chain

Lenovo’s commitment to sustainability extends beyond our as-a-service offering models and encompasses the full lifecycle of our products. Our sustainability?portfolio?starts by minimizing the usage of energy and raw material in the production of our devices. We then?maximize?a product’s?value throughout?its?lifecycle, benefitting our customers as well. Finally, we keep?end-of-life products out of the landfill through?significant?recycling?processes.

And we’re just getting started. Lenovo has?set?a?goal of?making all of our?PCs from recycled parts by FY2025/26. We?have?also pledged?a?50% improvement in energy efficiency for desktops and servers and 30% for notebooks and Motorola products by FY2029/30.?

We’re also developing proprietary technologies to help our customers drive energy efficiency. Our Lenovo Neptune? warm-water cooling technologies can drive down total power consumption for full operation of servers and data centers by as much as 40%. This helps organizations save money. And as part of our services, we ensure that the benefit continues over the life of the infrastructure.??

To make sure that sustainability takes roots, we need to make it easy for customers and ecosystem partners to take the first step towards carbon neutrality. Lenovo’s?CO2 Offset Service,?certified by DEKRA, does exactly that. The service is unique?as?it does the heavy lifting of calculating the average emissions of each device or server across its lifecycle of five years. Customers can then channel the funds from the offset into a range of United Nations-approved initiatives, such as a biomass energy project that generates electricity using a sugar mill, or a wind energy project.?

For example, under?the CO2 Offset Service, a large company in Australia is offsetting a half-ton of carbon emissions for each new Lenovo PC purchased. Under?this arrangement, the customer is going beyond achieving net-zero carbon emissions to address past emissions produced from the manufacture and shipping of each PC, as well as the power that will be consumed over the device’s lifecycle.?The largest carbon offset program of its kind to be deployed in Asia Pacific, this effort will ultimately eliminate the equivalent of the emissions of 3,000 cars per year.

Driving change

The ongoing global supply chain disruptions are a wake-up call to our industry. With delays and shortages of components and materials, companies need to relook – and dare I say, overhaul – how their supplies are sourced and whether these can be recycled closer to the manufacturing base to minimize carbon footprints.

But there is always a silver lining. Research firm Canalys suggested in a recent report the crisis offers manufacturers the opportunity to encourage channel partners to actively participate in the circular economy by moving into take-back, refurbishing and recycling activities, as well as diversifying energy usage via renewable sources.

Reaching sustainability targets is a huge challenge for all companies, but it’s not as herculean a task as it seems. By teaming up with customers and partners across the value chain,?and?jointly setting targets to boost transparency internally and externally with the public sector, companies?can?make?significant?progress?in?reducing their impact on the environment. A win-win for organizations and the Earth.