Originally published in Lenovo's 2023/24 ESG Report

Environmentally conscious products

Product materials

Lenovo’s corporate-wide environmental standards and specifications require its product designers to consider environmentally conscious design practices to facilitate and encourage recycling and minimization of resource consumption. Lenovo’s priority is to use environmentally preferable materials whenever practical. In adhering to this precautionary approach, it supports restricting the intentional addition of materials that are potentially concerning when economically and technically viable alternatives exist. These restrictions may also include implementing concentration limits for incidental occurrences.

For materials where economically and technically viable alternatives do not exist, Lenovo collects data on usage above the defined concentration limit. This data can then be reported to customers or other stakeholders. Lenovo continues to actively search for environmentally preferable materials that can be used as substitutes and expects its partners and suppliers to demonstrate the same commitment to environmentally sound practices. See Lenovo’s Materials Management webpage for more information.

Lenovo restricts the use of environmentally sensitive materials in its products. This includes the prohibition of ozone-depleting substances in all applications; the restriction on the use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) under the Stockholm Convention; and the elimination of materials covered under European Union (EU) Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) and Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), even beyond the jurisdictions where these regulatory requirements exist. Lenovo’s implementation strategy and requirements are consistent with the requirements specified in the EU’s RoHS Directive and REACH Regulation.

Lenovo supports phasing out brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and is committed to driving its supply chain toward this goal. Lenovo continues to focus on eliminating halogens from its top-selling products and across as many commodities as possible and has made progress including the following achievements:

• Phasing out completely the use of BFR/ chlorinated flame retardants (CFR)/PVC in all mechanical plastic parts (such as external covers, housings, etc.) across all its products
• Most of hard disk drives, optical disk drives, solid-state drives, LCD screens, memory, central processing units (CPUs), chipsets, and communication cards; and other commodities with offerings meet the International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI) definition³ of low halogen
• All ThinkPad notebooks including printed circuit boards (PCBs) meet the iNEMI definition³ of low halogen except for cables and wires, AC adapter
• All commercial monitors meet the iNEMI definition of low halogen except for their PCB assembly and cables. Furthermore, some monitors fully meet the iNEMI definition³ of low halogen
• All smartphone products are free of BFR and PVC • Prohibiting the intentional addition of the following pollutants to any of its parts:
  • Polybrominated Biphenyls (PBBs)
  • Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs)
  • Deca-Brominated Diphenyl Ethers

_{³ Lenovo supports the definition of “low halogen” electronics as defined in the “iNEMI Position Statement on the ‘Definition of Low-Halogen’ Electronics (BFR/CFR/PVC-Free)”}

Lenovo plans to use additional BFR and PVC-free parts and materials across the Think and Idea family of products as acceptable alternative materials become available, working toward the goal to phase out the use of these materials across all newly introduced products. Lenovo continues to work with its suppliers to pilot new BFR– and PVC– free applications. Lenovo recognizes that the phase-out of these materials is dependent upon the availability of suitable alternatives that meet its technological, cost, quality, environmental, health, and safety requirements.

In addition to the regulated materials, Lenovo has also identified an expanded list of materials and substances of environmental interest. These substances may be candidates for further restrictions in the future. It holds suppliers accountable for reporting the use of these materials through Supplier Material Declarations. A spreadsheet file containing the Full Material Disclosure (FMD) information, submitted via an environmental compliance analysis system, is the preferred format for confirmation of compliance to the restrictions and for reporting when substances in question are above the specified concentration levels.

Lenovo’s business unit environmental engineers utilize the environmental compliance analysis system to perform a Bill of Materials (BOM) validation to ensure every part number used in building the product has the required supplier information. Once the full BOM compliance verification is complete a detailed compliance summary report is generated to show the internal Company and external legal requirements at the full product level.

Big data set for materials and substances

As of the end of FY 2023/24, Lenovo’s Full Material Disclosures (FMD) system has accumulated an expansive data set of full material disclosure information for the business units. This information serves as a tool that can aid structural design and optimization, analyzing materials and mechanical properties, and improving product reliability.

Lenovo does not exempt any of its suppliers from providing FMD, though it does allow considerations for confidential information. Less than five percent of component suppliers do not provide FMD, usually for security or intellectual property reasons. Lenovo will continue its efforts to support FMD and those suppliers who do not provide them are requested to ensure their components’ compliance with an acceptable alternate format of materials disclosure, IEC 62474 declaration, test report, or self-declaration.

Lenovo informs its customers about the environmental attributes of its products as it relates to compliance with applicable laws and regulations through an industry-standard IT Eco Declaration form. Declarations for newly released products are posted on Lenovo’s ECO Declarations webpage.

Consistent with its precautionary approach, Lenovo continuously analyzes the regulatory environment and considers input from its customers, NGOs, and other stakeholders in the evaluation of potential health and environmental impacts of its products. Lenovo weighs these inputs to determine the restricted substances, as well as the substances of interest to be tracked for reporting and consideration of future restrictions.

Recycled materials

Lenovo continues to incorporate post-consumer recycled content (PCC) plastics, closed-loop post-consumer recycled content plastics (CL PCC), ocean bound plastics (OBP), recycled metals and it also introduced 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 recycled plastic materials from IT products. Environmental benefits are achieved while still creating a product that meets Lenovo’s high performance standards.

Lenovo currently uses PCC plastics in laptops, desktops, workstations, monitors, and accessories and is introducing its closed-loop process in more products each year.

By FY 2025/26, 100% of PC products will contain post-consumer recycled content materials. ⁴

_{⁴ Excludes tablets and accessories}

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 its suppliers to develop and qualify new grades of plastic resins previously unavailable to the IT industry. These materials receive environmental and performance qualifications before

For CL PCC, Lenovo’s research and development teams work with material suppliers and a third-party certification authority to build its 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. 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 more than 55 million kilograms and net CL PCC of nearly 25 million kilograms.

In 2023, Lenovo’s use of plastics containing recycled content was approximately 9.7 million kilograms (gross) with a net CL PCC of approximately 6.6 million kilograms.

Lenovo’s ESG KPIs include recycled content, refer to Section 9.0. Results of Lenovo’s progress against its recycled content usage targets are available in Section 8.0.

In addition to recycled plastics mentioned above, during FY 2023/24, Lenovo continues to incorporate ocean bound plastics (OBP) and recycled metals in its products. In an effort to reduce ocean pollution, Lenovo researched and sourced OBP for use in some products.

In 2023, Lenovo’s use of plastics containing OBP was approximately 14,000 kilograms (gross) with a net OBP of approximately 700 kilograms.

This year, Lenovo introduced OBP content in the speaker enclosures of ThinkPad L13 Gen 5 and ThinkPad L13 Yoga Gen 5. OBP content was also introduced into the fan housing, dummy smart card, and dummy SIM cover of the ThinkPad L14 Gen 5 and ThinkPad L16 Gen 1.

Recycled metal usage also supports the transition to a more circular economy. Recycled metal usage helps reduce mining and consumption of natural resources and has potential energy and emissions savings. In FY 2023/24, Lenovo expanded the use of recycled aluminum and magnesium to more ThinkPad products and all-in-one (AIO) products, including but not limited to:

For Lenovo ThinkPad X1 2-In-1 Gen 9:

• minimum 75% recycled aluminum for the A cover,
• minimum 75% recycled aluminum or minimum 90% recycled magnesium for the C cover, and
• minimum 55% recycled aluminum for D cover.

For Yoga AIO 9 32IRH8:

• minimum 75% recycled aluminum for the frame.

Lenovo this year also started to use:

• minimum 21% recycled steel in main frame of:
  • ThinkVision P27pz-30, and
  • ThinkVision P32pz-30,
• minimum 50% post-consumer recycled copper in thermal module of:
  • ThinkPad P14s Gen 5,
  • P16s Gen 3,
  • T14p Gen 2,
  • L14 Gen 5, and
  • L16 Gen 1, and
• post-consumer recycled rare earth element in the magnet for the speaker, ForcePad, and hall sensor of select ThinkPad products.

Many products contain different kinds of recycled and sustainable materials. ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 contains:

• 3.1% pre-consumer recycled carbon fiber in the A cover,
• minimum 90% recycled magnesium in the C cover,
• 55% recycled aluminum in the D cover,
• 85% post-consumer recycled plastic in the keycap, and
• 90% post-consumer recycled plastic in the battery enclosure, speaker enclosure, and AC adapter enclosure.

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