Lenovo ESG
Recycled Content
Our Approach
Lenovo is committed to incorporating post-consumer recycled content (PCC) plastics, closed-loop post-consumer recycled content plastics (CL PCC), ocean bound plastics (OBP), recycled metals as well as introducing new materials such as post-consumer recycled rare earth metals into select products. These recycled materials are important to Lenovo's product development strategy and transition to a circular economy. Using engineered plastics not only helps save 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 PCC is helping to sustain the demand for plastic materials from IT products. 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 five years in recycled content usage includes:
2023
- Expanded the use of CL PCC to 315 products
- Qualified 95% CL PCC, 85% CL PCC + 7% bio-based content recycled plastic for visual products
- Introduced post-consumer recycled rare earth metals in products
- Introduced recycled steel and copper in products
2022
- Expanded the use of CL PCC to 298 products
- Qualified 95% CL PCC, 97% PCC and 98% PCC recycled plastic to support product higher post-consumer recycled content
- Introduced 100% recycled aluminum for tablet products
2021
- Expanded the use of CL PCC to 248 products
- Introduced Ocean Bound Plastics in five products
- Introduced recycled aluminum in three products and magnesium in one product
2020
- Expanded the use of CL PCC to 103 products, up from 66 products the previous year
- Began using CL PCC in a server application for the first time in the Company's ThinkSystem SR950
2019
- Expanded use of CL PCC to 66 additional products
- 1st Use of CL PCC in Lenovo notebook application (XI Carbon 7th Generation)
- Desktop and visual models with >25% CL PCC by total product weight
Since early 2005, Lenovo's cumulative total use of recycled plastics in products has reached over 140 million kilograms (gross) containing PIC, PCC, and/or CL PCC, with net PCC of approximately 55 million kilograms and net CL PCC of more than 25 million kilograms.
Recycled Content & 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 engineers work 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 PCC, Lenovo's research and development teams work with material suppliers and a third-party certification authority to build our CL PCC 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
