How has Lenovo taken the lead towards achieving social and environmental sustainability goals?

How has Lenovo taken the lead towards achieving social and environmental sustainability goals?

In 2017, Peter Scott Morgan, a robotics scientist from Torquay, England, received shocking news. He would only have two years before he died, as he had been diagnosed with a rare motor neuron disease, which is an incurable disease in which the muscles deteriorate to The degree of paralysis, but Scott Morgan literally did the impossible to save his life, taking advantage of his knowledge and mind.

Drawing on his extensive experience in the field of robotics, Morgan usedtechnology; To devise ways to maintain the continuation of his vital functions, he also came up with an ingenious way to continue communicating with people once he lost the ability to speak, as he recorded 20,000 different words so that he could put sentences together with his voice, and he actually succeeded in his endeavors, and that Before he died in June of this year.

During these past few years, fatal health conditions did not prevent Morgan from leaving a mark in the world of technology and sustainability, as he cooperated in his last years with the global technology company “Lenovo” to use artificial intelligence in developing innovative solutions to help people who They suffer from difficult conditions everywhere.

Scott Morgan said: “I have turned my entire life into research and experimentation to rewrite my future, but more importantly, I have had the opportunity to rewrite the future for millions and perhaps billions.”

Sustainability challenges impose themselves on the scene

Creating a smarter world is a fundamental mission for many technology companies around the world, including the global technology giant “Lenovo”, which is a technology services and solutions company that includes more than 63,000 employees in more than 66 countries, and offers a large number of consumer electronic products such as computers and smartphones. And others.

In light of the growing interest and awareness, Lenovo has begun to pay attention and invest to innovate green, inclusive and responsible measures for itself and its customers, and today, companies are pledging to improve environmental, social and corporate governance, commitments that were once optional but It has become increasingly mandatory.

Recently, for example, we find that the US Securities and Exchange Commission has begun to require disclosure of the carbon footprint of companies registered with it, and companies may soon need to track and mitigate the effects of their carbon footprints throughout their entire supply chains. To comply with new regulations and laws.

There is no doubt that companies are becoming more aware of the extent of their exposure to issues related to environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG), and for Lenovo, tracking, evaluating, and improving data on environmental, social, and corporate governance practices has been a major goal for years, both internally and externally. Customers.

Lenovo recently announced new commitments to obtain 90 percent of the electricity needed for its production operations from renewable sources, committing to eliminating “one million tons” of greenhouse gas emissions from its supply chain, and continuing to increase accessibility for all, despite being based in Asia. However, it has offices all over the world, and Lenovo relies on its global reach to innovate ESG solutions internally, and if they prove successful, it will roll them out to customers.

Lenovo uses a data-driven framework to create ESG solutions on a global scale; Which leads to innovations that can lead to pioneering change, whether for consumers or the company’s customers alike. “Lenovo helps set global standards for environmental, social, and corporate governance,” says Laura Quatella, the company’s vice president and chief legal officer. “In addition to being an ethical responsibility, ESG solutions create good income opportunities.” For our institutional partners, and innovations that ensure greener and more accessible technology for all.”

Setting sustainability goals on a global scale

Most companies have an explicit commitment to improving their environmental footprint, but measuring the impact of mitigation efforts can be difficult. For example, emissions that come from a company’s broader supply chain, which includes other suppliers and manufacturers outside the company, can represent up to 90 percent of the total carbon footprint. For Lenovo, reducing emissions across the entire supply chain is a priority, and now the company is raising the bar by committing to halve its own emissions by 2030 while reducing all emissions from products, suppliers and transportation by 25%.

Lenovo achieves goals like these through continuous innovation. For example, one of the key technologies that enables the company to achieve emissions reductions isLiquid CoolingPC technology, which it calls “Lenovo Neptune,” which allows high-performance computing in Data centers, which usually produce a large amount of heat as a result of continuous data processing, which causes companies to spend huge sums of money and increase their carbon footprint in energy for cooling operations.

By using Neptune technology (which uses cold plates to transfer heat from electronics to fluids), companies can reduce energy consumption and increase efficiency by more than 50%, which can save money and reduce environmental impact. “The energy savings with Neptune technology are very significant,” Quatila says. “The new cooling technology has been very popular, which makes sense given the great benefits, both economically and environmentally.”

Innovation to reduce waste at every step

In 2020, online shopping increased by more than 32 percent to reach “791 billion” dollars, which is the highest level ever. This rate continued to grow increasingly, especially after the Corona pandemic crisis. This increasing demand for electronic purchasing necessarily resulted in unprecedented quantities. From waste in the form of discarded shipping containers and packaging.

Currently, for example, the United States generates more plastic waste than any country in the world, and recycles less than 10 percent of it. However, the shift to online shopping (and the accompanying rise in the use of single-use plastics) may also represent an opportunity for encouragement. To innovate to find sustainable solutions, for its part, Lenovo has worked to improve the efficiency of packaging for personal computers and other of its products, by using fewer materials and incorporating sustainable materials such as bamboo and sugarcane into the materials used in packaging.

Lenovo __EG_PH_48 is also changing electronic products themselves, both in how they are manufactured and what materials they are made of, ensuring that by 2025, every computer manufactured by the company will contain recycled materials, with a percentage of repair guaranteed. Up to 75 percent of the parts that are replaced by their service centers for reuse in the future, and it is expected that all of these initiatives will contribute to the reuse of “360,000” tons annually of devices that have ended their normal lifespan instead of turning them into electronic waste, which is very important for contributing to the circular economy, as The modifications and improvements that the company makes to its products will significantly reduce the environmental footprint.

On the other hand, Lenovo helped develop the consumer electronics industry to become greener, by inventing a low-temperature “welding process” for components; Which led to a reduction in personal computer manufacturing emissions by 35 percent and increased product reliability. Lenovo began using this technology in 2016, and by July of 2021, the company had sold “41.1 million” computers with an emissions savings of “8.2 billion” tons of carbon dioxide. Thanks to the innovative welding method, and after unveiling this new manufacturing method, Lenovo shared the technology used with other manufacturers to ensure reaching the maximum possible benefit.

Enhancing accessibility for all

Lenovo seeks to ensure that everyone can use its technologies, and perhaps the fruit of its cooperation with the late roboticist Scott Morgan is summed up in self-driving wheelchairs, which can alleviate the suffering of many patients around the world, and in addition In addition, the company has a product diversity office that tests each item to ensure that all people can use it.

Lenovo’s commitments to improving the climate and ensuring smart technologies are universally accessible to all will have ripple effects for customers and people everywhere by helping to build a greener world. Looking to the future, the world needs to double down on investment in innovation; This is done by strengthening environmental, social and institutional governance in new ways, while monitoring and measuring rates of progress and improvement. This is so that we can continue to address climate change issues, for a brighter future.

As we see, new smart technologies that take sustainability as their starting point can lead to amazing results in reducing the carbon footprint of many products, in addition to the financial and social benefits that companies will enjoy, which places a great responsibility on It is the responsibility of companies, especially giant international companies, which can create new trends that positively impact transforming consumer behavior to be more sustainable.