Industry leaders in China jointly launched an initiative in early August to promote enterprises' ESG (Environmental, social and governance) responsibility. 

In the wake of China's commitment to carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, leaders from different sectors of government, non-governmental organizations, media, finance and technology are joining the national effort to achieve the "dual carbon" goals and have incorporated relevant targets in their development strategies. 

Liu Wei, the director of corporate standards and environmental affairs at Lenovo, believes it is the responsibility of leading enterprises to serve as a "driving force" in reaching the climate goals. 

One in every eight laptops in the world comes from a Lenovo factory. As the world's largest personal computer (PC) company, multiple suppliers produce different parts of each Lenovo PC. Having enrolled in the "ESG Sustainable Action Initiative," the company is expanding the decarbonization goals to each party in the supply chain. 

"That's where the difficulty lies," Liu said in an exclusive interview with CGTN, prior to the opening of the 2023 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS), noting that while the company has made great strides internally, it has less control over external suppliers.

Nevertheless, she said, as a leading enterprise, Lenovo should serve as a "driving force" that enables other companies to realize green transformation through technology.

'Green transformation through digital transformation'

"I think it is important to promote green development through digitization," Liu said.

At this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Lenovo's factory in Hefei City, east China's Anhui Province, called LCFC, was one of the 18 sites added to the forum's Global Lighthouse Network in recognition of its leadership and integration of fourth Industrial revolution technologies (4IR). 

LCFC has undergone a series of digital transformations that improved its labor productivity by 45 percent, reducing suppliers' quality issues, while managing 8,000 orders a day – 80 percent of which are small-scale orders of less than five units, according to a company press release.

"These are small batch orders that are tailored to customer requirements," Liu said. "And they are naturally difficult in terms of production scheduling."

But with advanced configuration and an analytical algorithm born out of the company's research institute, the idle rate and production time on the assembly lines are well balanced, Liu said.

She added that electronics manufacturing is not a high-emitting sector if looked at from a single point, but the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the long and complicated supply chain cannot be ignored. Therefore, enabling different sectors with innovative technology is the key to reach "net-zero."

It's not just Lenovo who's working to energize a green push through technology. One of China's internet giants, Baidu, aims to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 70 million tonnes by 2030 with green solutions in transportation, such as its AI models, new energy vehicles powered by advanced autonomous driving platforms and Mobile as a Service (MaaS) applications, according its 2022 ESG report.

Another e-commerce giant, JD, claimed in its 2022 ESG report to have launched three million types of green products.

Chinese enterprises set aggressive goals with SBTi

Lenovo is the first Chinese high-tech company in the manufacturing sector to be validated by the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi), a UN-backed climate organization. The list only features companies committed to reducing emissions in line with the Paris Agreement goals.

The SBTi evaluates company portfolios and validates their climate targets yearly, so companies that fall behind can fall off the list. This year, big U.S. companies including Amazon, Kohls and 100 more were removed from the SBTi list.

By the end of 2022, more than 4,000 companies around the world had participated in the SBTi and set science-based carbon targets. Other Chinese enterprises validated include electric vehicle make NIO and solar energy companies such as LONGi Green Energy, JA Solar and Trina Solar.

Lenovo only joined the list recently, but first set emission reduction targets in 2009 and upgraded to a second-generation target in 2015, according to Liu.

"We originally set the goal as cutting 20 percent of GHG emissions using 2008 as a base year, but when we looked back and re-evaluated after setting the second-generation goal, we'd actually cut 92 percent," she said, adding that it was a challenging process as the company grew and expanded production.

Now it has chosen to join the SBTi, which evaluates carbon emission not only by the company itself, but also vendors along the chain and consumers.

"We have to take users' scenarios into consideration and make sure they are saving energy during the stage of product concept and prototype design," Liu said.

The environmental services exhibition at the 2023 CIFTIS will showcase the latest achievements and technological developments in the environmental services sector, such as low-carbon energy, carbon neutrality and green technology, climate and low-carbon economy, and circular economy. It aims to highlight China's unremitting efforts to achieve its carbon neutrality goal, and to encourage companies worldwide to innovate and cooperate.

Stay-tuned with CGTN for special coverage on a "green CIFTIS 2023." 

Video editor: Zhang Rongyi

Videographer: Han Peichen