Lenovo: 2025 is the year to act on sustainability

At the vendor’s Circle 360 Summit in Geneva, global sustainability director Virginie Le Barbu urged the channel to take action to fight the growing climate crisis

In 2024, there were 151 unprecedented examples of extreme weather, and 40 million people around the world were displaced as a result of flood, famine and natural disaster.

Those were just some of the scary statistics shared by Lenovo’s global sustainability director Virginie Le Barbu in her opening keynote at the Geneva-based event this morning, as she urged members of the vendor’s 360 Circle initiative to focus even more on hitting Net Zero goals and working together to innovate around sustainability.

With 565 partners across EMEA, North America, Asia Pacific and Latin America, the 360 Circle is growing significantl as more channel partners recognise the business benefits of adopting a more sustainable model.

Le Barbu said the vendor had made great strides in its 360 Circle strategy over the past year setting up focus groups, sustainability learning paths, a women’s mentoring program, a Leadership Guided Journey initiative, and most recently, an Advisory Board to help shape its future direction.

While there were some positives globally such as falling emission in key regions, ESG regulations expanding and a surge in renewables, Le Barbu said, she stressed that there were also significant challenges such as political pushback reversing green policy, greenwashing and fossil fuel lock-in in some major economies.

This is why Lenovo is pushing harder than ever to bring more of its channel under the green umbrella.

“We want to accelerate the adoption of the circular economy and we want to be more transparent with you, we want to ensure that we stay accountable to you,” said Le Barbu.

“The circular economy is moving to the mainstream, and ESG is moving from reporting to be a core part of the business plan,” she added. “2025 is the year where we need to accelerate that transformative action, where we need to maximise the value of sustainability and use it as a driver of growth.”