As a global technology powerhouse, Lenovo recognizes that it can help make the world more sustainable through innovative applications of our technology and the scale of its global business. Since 2005, a strong Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) program has and continues to be part of our total solution for all its internal and external stakeholders. For more than three decades Lenovo has been helping organizations re-think the way they use technology and as part of its wish to deliver smarter technology for all, Lenovo considers Sustainability as a key driver for innovation to answer emerging industry trends and customer needs.
At the value chain level, Lenovo is fostering a responsible ecosystem, collaborating across the IT lifecycle with both internal and external stakeholders to drive the needed transformation and accelerate sustainable impacts. Moving from a supply chain to a value chain approach is crucial to successfully integrating the notion of a responsible ecosystem. Historically, Lenovo prioritized its upstream ecosystem, establishing a robust sustainability supplier engagement program. However, since late 2021, the focus shifted towards engaging the downstream ecosystem through Lenovo 360 Circle, with a particular focus on the Channel. Why? Because Lenovo’s downstream ecosystem represents 50% of its greenhouse gas emissions and the channel represents 80% of its revenue stream. We’ll learn more from Virginie LE BARBU, Global Sustainability Director – International Markets, and Lenovo 360 Circle Lead.
Q. What were the initial objectives of establishing the Lenovo 360 Circle?
Virginie Le Barbu: “As part of the Lenovo 360 Partner Program launched in 2021, we have included a sustainability pillar to drive actionable and impactful global sustainable initiatives within and with its channel ecosystem: Lenovo 360 Circle. When considering how to integrate sustainability into the Lenovo 360 program, it became clear that a community-based approach was the most suitable foundation.
The Lenovo 360 Circle is a collaborative approach that promotes responsible procurement and consumption, aiming to accelerate the sustainability journey within the channel ecosystem by breaking down barriers. As a community, we address sustainability as a new business driver while unlocking new business opportunities as well as sustainability as being a good corporate citizen aligning on common ESG goals and adhering to established frameworks like the Science Based Target Initiative and the United Nations Global Compact Sustainable Development Goals.
The Lenovo 360 Circle is founded on common goals shared with our partners. Those goals are aligned with our corporate ESG goals. The community is also supporting the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 17: Partnerships for The Goals. I’m convinced that being able to address properly sustainability requires unity and collaboration not only internally but also externally. Through the Lenovo 360 Circle, we’re building a community based on an individual and collective learning approach to break down barriers and encourage collaboration.”
Q. What key milestones have been achieved since the launch of the sustainability community?
Virginie Le Barbu: “I do foresee three key milestones in our journey so far. The first one relates to the crafting of the community blueprint. The Lenovo 360 Circle began with a group of 20 founding partners who gradually joined starting November 2021. We deliberately ensured diverse representation across geographies and sustainability maturity levels. This was crucial in establishing a community blueprint that accommodates partners at different stages of their organizational sustainability journey. During this period, we have also closely collaborated with 3rd parties like the United Nations Global Compact, whose involvement has been instrumental in deploying the Lenovo 360 Circle community agnostic framework and blueprint.
The second milestone relates to the implementation of the framework while we enabled the community’s platform for collaboration and shared learning. The Lenovo 360 Circle is a sustainability community crafted for the channel by the channel, hinged upon a tailored, easy-to-adopt ESG blueprint. And since September 2023, doors have been open to any channel partners.
And the third one was our very first Lenovo 360 Community Summit which happened earlier in 2024. The inaugural event held in Brussels, Belgium, had 140 participants, including our community members, sustainability experts, customers, suppliers, and Lenovo leaders from 27 countries. It was the first of its kind in the industry and as some of the executives in attendance said, “nothing like a traditional channel event”. This event has kicked off the next phase for growth and impact of our community.”
Q. How has the engagement and participation of members evolved over time?
Virginie Le Barbu: “The Lenovo 360 Circle is expanding and we have now 446 members representing 2411 local entities in 44 countries. With 425 sustainability experts—a 126% year-over-year increase, the Lenovo 360 Circle has facilitated over 350 hours of collaboration through focus groups, workshops, and interlocks, and developed 5.5 hours of training resources across 14 courses and 65 modules to support channel sellers and sustainability experts, approximately half of which are industry-agnostic. We have also recently published the Lenovo 360 Circle onboarding kit that aims to facilitate the integration of new members.
We had our first community forum back in June 2022 and since then the quality of the exchange kept on improving. The engagement in the focus groups has been exceptional and seeing them accelerating their own journey has been a delight and a strong motivator for us. Each of our members continues to play a key role in shaping the community’s blueprint. This approach enables us to develop targeted resources supporting a sustainability growth mindset within our partner ecosystem.
Furthermore, our Lenovo 360 Circle advisors are unique and play an important role in driving engagement. These are organizations willing to support Lenovo 360 Circle on strategic priorities and best practices/expertise sharing. Their engagement can be regular or ad hoc and is generally made through strategic initiatives such as community accelerators.”
Q. What specific initiatives have been implemented to drive sustainability within the community?
Virginie Le Barbu: “Collaboration is vital for expediting our sustainability journey, and the community’s collaborative approach is the cornerstone of our strategy. Over the past two years, we’ve established a robust platform of tools to facilitate expertise sharing and best practices, while fostering co-creation and innovation.
The dedicated Lenovo 360 Circle Lenovo Partner Hub (LPH) page marks the initial step in this collaborative journey, as the community operates on a self-service basis. Most resources can be accessed from there, and while LPH is more sales-driving we have also developed a sustainability-dedicated community platform to streamline best practices and expertise sharing. We are also collaborating with CRN on their sustainability in tech platform. Besides this, the Lenovo 360 Circle community forums and webinars aim to raise awareness, share best practices, and drive community building. The focus groups, accessible to LEAD members, aim to drive significant change by accelerating the transition to more sustainable business models and practices. And last but not least, the Lenovo 360 Circle Summit is an annual global face-to-face conference to unite and inspire the Lenovo 360 Circle Lead members.
So far, feedback from our members is positive. Our leadership has been recognized by the channel itself as we received the Champion status in the 2023 Canalys Global Sustainable Ecosystems Leadership Matrix and we were awarded the Best Value Chain Initiative of the Year at CRN’s inaugural Sustainability in Tech summit in February 2024. This award recognizes a company, or partnership of companies, that are taking steps to reduce emissions across their entire supply chain, reduce waste and resource usage, and provide tangible results of the impact they are making on the environment.”
Q. Can you share more on the Lenovo 360 Circle Summit and how is it helping advance sustainability within the community?
Virginie Le Barbu: “The Lenovo 360 Circle Summit is an annual global event with the core idea of encouraging collective sustainability action through our community. This groundbreaking event brought together key stakeholders from our entire ecosystem, including some other ICT players, on a single and open platform to collaboratively tackle the complex challenge of sustainability within the ICT industry. Participants have engaged in discussions, workshops, and community service.
The summit focused on three main actionable themes. First, ‘Accelerating the Shift Towards a Circular Economy’ explored opportunities and challenges in adopting circular economy practices, including eco-design, and product lifecycle extension, ‘Enhancing ESG Data Transparency, Accessibility, and Reliability’ centered on improving ESG assessments, leveraging digitalization for better ESG data management, addressing standardization gaps for product sustainability attributes, and developing strategies for effective Scope 3 inventory management and energy efficiency measurement. Lastly, ‘Embracing a Responsible Ecosystem and Sustainability Leadership’ covered topics like value chain resilience, integrating sustainability into boards, prioritizing human rights, DEI, and quantifying sustainability for business performance and competitive advantage.
The event has also been the opportunity to organize our first Lenovo 360 Circle awards ceremony that recognizes outstanding efforts in this field, celebrate, and honor organizations that have demonstrated exemplary leadership and innovation in sustainability practices within the Channel and beyond.
One of our participants came up with a great word to summarize those three days: “competition” and we like that. The outcome of this first edition went above our expectations, and we are already working on the 2025 edition. This summit exemplifies Lenovo’s commitment to advancing sustainability in the community, fostering industry-wide collaboration to drive meaningful change.”
Q. How is the Lenovo 360 Circle impacting Lenovo’s ESG approach?
Virginie Le Barbu: “Today, sustainability extends beyond mere compliance and regulation—it is an essential business imperative. Companies are increasingly embedding responsible ecosystem management into their operations, implementing both direct and indirect sustainable procurement practices through ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) programs. This commitment is now reflected in procurement and selection criteria, with ESG performance and impact measurement becoming central to decision-making. Many organizations expect their vendors to not only champion sustainability but also to actively collaborate in their journey toward sustainable growth.
Our team’s role is to seize this trend as a growth opportunity for Lenovo, positioning sustainability as a competitive advantage and core business driver. Our approach focuses on four key pillars:
- Collaborate with Ecosystem and Amplify Market Needs: We foster collaboration across the entire ecosystem, both internally and externally, to support a transition to a value-chain approach. Leveraging our downstream ecosystem community, we actively gather and analyze market needs to guide our sustainability strategy.
- Transform Business Models and Processes: By channeling these insights into Lenovo’s business units, we influence the development of sustainable offerings and promote new business models rooted in ESG impact and performance measurement.
- Accelerate Lenovo’s Sustainability Impact: We empower our sales teams to champion sustainability in the market and fully integrate it into the sales process, driving meaningful engagement with our customers on Lenovo’s sustainability journey.
- Communicate Lenovo’s Sustainability Leadership: We strengthen Lenovo’s leadership in sustainability by delivering unified messaging and collateral that highlights our commitment and achievements.
This initiative also fosters unity across our business groups and operational functions, aligning our efforts and amplifying our impact. The Lenovo 360 Circle is the backbone of our efforts, providing a direct platform for collaboration with our downstream ecosystem. This framework enables seamless partnerships, aligning our initiatives and fostering a unified approach to sustainability across the value chain. Together, we are paving the way for Lenovo to lead as a sustainable, innovative, and responsible business.”
Q. And now what’s next?
Virginie Le Barbu: “Following the summit, we refined our approach across four key pillars: Sustainability Leadership, ESG Data Management, Circular Economy, and Social Progress. Over the next two years, we’ll focus on three primary objectives to drive collective impact:
- Community Expansion and Expertise Growth: Strength lies in unity, so expanding our community—both with existing partners and new members from our broader ecosystem—is crucial. We aim to enhance the community’s sustainability knowledge, and our accreditation launch will be a pivotal step, in embedding sustainability within our sales approach through the channel.
- Enhanced ESG Data Management and Performance Measurement: Reliable impact data is essential for advancing responsible procurement and consumption practices. Implementing robust ESG data management will enable us to track performance accurately, building accountability and strengthening our business case both internally and throughout our value chain.
- Innovation and Co-Creation for Sustainable Solutions: Sustainability requires forward-thinking solutions, many of which may already exist but remain underutilized or unexplored. Our goal is to identify and co-create these solutions, driving swift adoption and advancing sustainable business models across our ecosystem.
These objectives will shape our upcoming partner activities, progressively refining our ecosystem’s sustainability strategy. We’re genuinely excited about the growth potential this community-focused approach will bring, creating not only a measurable impact within our network but also positioning the company as a leader in sustainable transformation at a broader, industry-wide level. “
