A tailored compliance solution blending system design and operational excellence

Opportunity

Beginning in the late 2000s, manufacturers of electronic equipment were faced with the proliferation of electronics take-back laws in the United States which vary significantly among the different states in the US and the different countries in Latin America. In addition to compliance solutions, Lenovo also wanted to add voluntary take-back offerings in states without regulation and engaged RLGA to manage these voluntary programs.
Lenovo’s programs had to be designed to comply with regulations, corporate standards and be consistent with Lenovo’s business values.
The solution design was only step one. The next challenge was to provide ongoing day-to-day management and operational oversight of these compliance programs, ensuring the burden on Lenovo’s local teams would be minimal but with high flexibility to adjust to an ever changing environment.
RLG’s approach was a great fit for Lenovo, being able to cover the entire region and deliver a tailor-made solution that continuously adapts to the business and legal requirements.

Solution

Since legal requirements are constantly changing, legislation monitoring and appropriate system design are the fundamental basis of RLG’s comprehensive environmental compliance solution. All take-back activities, be they regulatory or voluntary, have been set up and are constantly monitored and adjusted according to the individual legal and business demands in each state and each country to assure 100% compliance at all times.
To operate the take-back and recycling services, RLG has set up a network of service providers across all states and countries. Service providers must qualify to Lenovo and RLG standards through audits performed by RLG on a regular basis to assure constant high service quality and the fulfilment of corporate standards. RLG also assures quality with supplier management/audits.
RLG also supports reporting to authorities to assist Lenovo’s internal team with this activity as well.
Partnering with a global provider for umbrella solutions like RLG had an added benefit when RLG gave Lenovo the opportunity to bundle their activities with other RLG manufacturer customers’ activities where appropriate and thus save cost while achieving better collection volumes. In some of the US states and Latin American countries, Lenovo became part of a group plan, a collective take-back scheme with other IT equipment producers, managed by RLG.

Value Return

With their valued partnership with RLG, Lenovo achieves a high level of certainty of being compliant in all jurisdictions at all times.
Conveniently, the partnership with RLG delivers a number of advantages:
> Ongoing changes of legislation, but also business expansion and growth can be easily reflected in the solution design and adjustments made very quickly.
> Lenovo can free their staff from complex and time consuming day-to-day operational management of regulatory compliance programs.
> Through the bundling with other manufacturers, the solution operation is attractively priced and through these alliances, Lenovo is able to make a more significant positive impact in addressing the underlying issues being addressed by legislation.

“Leveraging the comprehensive compliance systems RLG Americas has built to manage US and Latin American electronics recycling allows us to make electronics recycling for our customers simple and easy. Their attention to changing regulations and customer service helps manage complex systems and issues in a way that meets both our own internal and our customers’ expectations.”
Mary Jacques, Americas Environmental Manager and Global Environmental Affairs Team Lead, Lenovo