Making circularity measurable Sustainable tech procurement with Lenovo
To achieve net-zero emissions by 2040, Deloitte is tackling a significant challenge: the hidden environmental impact of the technology we use every day. Our collaboration with Lenovo demonstrates how we're transforming essential tech procurement to be more sustainable.
With a shared ambition to reduce the environmental impact of tech in the workplace, we aimed to explore how 'circularity' – the practice of keeping products and materials in use for as long as possible – can reduce the carbon footprint of electronics.
The challenge of measuring circularity
Circularity is vital for a sustainable future. It helps tackle pollution and the overuse of natural resources by extending product life, increasing recycled content, and improving end-of-life recovery.
Product-specific carbon footprints are the industry golden standard for measuring greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Lenovo has measured this for its new and refurbished devices and found that refurbished devices are about half as carbon intensive as buying new.
However, measuring how 'circular' an item truly is, has been difficult until now. Different approaches and a lack of common standards meant there was no consistent way to compare results or make informed decisions. This lack of a common language hindered progress.
To address this, we supported Lenovo to leverage the Global Circularity Protocol (GCP). This internationally recognized framework provides a consistent way to measure how materials flow into and out of products, allowing comparison of how ‘circular’ different items are. It offers valuable context beyond carbon emissions, highlighting the broader environmental impact of material use.
Translating protocol into practice: what we found
We supported Lenovo to put the GCP into action. We focused on defining what to measure and the data needed, ensuring the GCP was applied in a way that translated into clear, actionable results.
We compared circularity across four laptop purchasing scenarios: buying new, buying refurbished, leasing new, and leasing refurbished devices. We also defined a focused set of metrics to ensure outputs were meaningful and easy to communicate to customers:
- Circular inflow – the percentage of materials or components going into the products that were reused or recycled.
- Circular outflow – the percentage of materials or components that could be recycled or reused at the product’s end-of-life.
- Material circularity – the overall circularity of a product, combining circular inflow and circular outflow.
This direct comparison revealed important insights:
- Leasing refurbished devices delivers the highest overall circularity at 92%.
- Refurbished devices significantly increase circular inflow to 84%, through reused materials and components.
- Leasing models improve circular outflow to 99% by ensuring devices are collected and materials are recovered at end-of-life.
The analysis also helped identify materials or components that had the biggest environmental impact, showing Lenovo exactly where to focus efforts for improvement.
A key finding, particularly relevant for other organisations, was that measuring circularity does not always require entirely new or highly granular data. In Lenovo’s case, much of the information was already available through its refurbished device lifecycle assessments, providing a strong starting point and enabling insights to be generated quickly. While organisations at any stage of data maturity can begin their circular procurement journey today, having product-level data in place makes it easier to turn ambition into action.
Steps towards a more circular future
This project goes beyond demonstrating what circularity is - it shows what it looks like in practice. Representing a real-world application of the Global Circularity Protocol, moving beyond ambition to quantified, decision-useful insight.
It shows how circularity can be embedded into everyday business decisions - not as a compliance exercise, but as a driver of resilience and long-term value creation.
“Our products allow our customers to cut cost and carbon out of their business simultaneously, without sacrificing performance. Now we can also quantify the circularity of our products in a way that is measurable, credible, and useful for customers," says James Pennington, Global Sustainability Services Director at Lenovo.
"By applying a consistent framework, we’re better able to communicate the circular performance of our products and services and support organisations like Deloitte with more informed purchasing choices."
Building on these insights, Deloitte is exploring how this work could inform future approaches to sustainable procurement. This includes:
- Considering how circularity-related questions might be incorporated into supplier selection processes, helping to bring greater transparency to decision-making.
- Assessing the potential for a small-scale pilot linked to the purchasing or leasing of refurbished laptops—an area identified as offering strong circularity outcomes.
These initial steps are intended to build practical understanding and support the continued evolution of our procurement strategy.
Overall, our collaboration illustrates how the Global Circularity Protocol can serve as a tool to measure circularity in a clear and consistent manner. It provides a common frame of reference to communicate progress on circularity initiatives, allowing for alignment and collaboration with multiple stakeholders.
Beyond this case study, the potential impact is significant. Widespread adoption of the GCP could reduce global material consumption by 4–5% and drive a further 6–7% reduction in GHG emissions between 2026 and 2050.
This work demonstrates how organisations can start embedding circularity today by using the GCP to measure performance, align decision‑making and translate ambition into practical action on technology-related emissions.
Get in touch
Josie Stoker
Manager, Technology & Transformation
jestoker@deloitte.co.uk
+44 11 8322 2110
"Working with Lenovo on a first-of-a-kind application of the Global Circularity Protocol for electronic devices was an incredibly valuable opportunity. It showed how this framework can be applied in practice to generate credible, decision-useful insights, in addition to helping Deloitte’s procurement team with making more informed choices"
adds Serena Pozza, Deloitte UK Circularity Lead.
