Lenovo ESG
Recycled Content
Our Approach
Lenovo is committed to incorporating post-industrial recycled content (PIC) plastics, post-consumer recycled content (PCC) plastics, and closed-loop post-consumer recycled plastics (CL-PCR) as well as introducing new materials such as ocean bound plastics (OBP) and recycled metals into our products. These recycled materials are instrumental to Lenovo's product development strategy and transition to a circular economy. Using these engineered plastics not only saves the natural resources and energy that would have gone into manufacturing new plastics, but also diverts these materials from landfills. Lenovo's increased use of CL-PCR is helping to sustain the demand for plastic materials from IT products. These environmental benefits are achieved while still creating a product that meets Lenovo's high-performance standards.
At a Glance
Milestones for Lenovo during the past four years in recycled content usage includes:
2021
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Expanded the use of CL PCR to 248 products
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Introduced Ocean Bound Plastics in five products
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Introduced recycled aluminum in three products and magnesium in one product
2020
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Expanded the use of CL PCR to 103 products, up from 66 products the previous year
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Began using CL PCR in a server application for the first time in the Company's ThinkSystem SR950
2019
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Expanded use of CL PCR to 66 additional products
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1st Use of CL PCR in Lenovo notebook application (XI Carbon 7th Generation)
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Desktop and visual models with >25% CL PCR by total product weight
2018
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Qualified new grades of CL PCR for additional resin chemistries and suppliers
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Expanded use of CL PCR to 21 products (added keyboards)
Since early 2005, Lenovo's cumulative total use of recycled plastics in products has reached over 123 million kilograms (gross) containing PIC, PCC, and/or CL-PCR, with net PCC of over 52 million kilograms and net CL-PCR of more than 14 million kilograms.
Recycled Content and Our Suppliers
Using PCC in IT products presents significant challenges due to the unique structural, performance, and cosmetic requirements associated with these applications. To overcome the continuing challenges of using recycled content in the design and manufacture of smart connected devices, especially notebooks, tablets, and smartphones, Lenovo's team of engineers works closely with our suppliers to develop and qualify new grades of plastic resins previously unavailable to the IT industry. These materials receive environmental and performance qualifications before their approval and use in our product applications.
For CL-PCR, Lenovo's research and development teams work with material suppliers and a third-party certification authority to build our CL-PCR supplier and material process, including the "Approved Recycling Standard", the "Quality Assurance Operation Requirements", and the "Recovery Ratio" to validate their sources of waste and control processes using a hierarchical waste product traceability scheme.
To learn more about Lenovo's use of recycled content materials, please our most recent ESG Report.
Please note: Lenovo calculates and reports net recycled plastics content based only on the actual weight of the post-consumer or post-industrial recycled content in the plastic resin blend, not the overall weight of the blend. That means that for every 100 lbs of a plastic resin blend containing 30% post-consumer content, the net usage Lenovo reports is only 30 lbs of post-consumer content, not the overall weight of the material.
