Even as most of the world talks about disruption in terms of the now—mobility, blockchain, connectivity—futurists and technologists are focused on the emerging innovations that will shape what’s next. Recently, a panel of experts discussed the metaverse, the future of sustainability, and more at a panel sponsored by Lenovo and Intel in partnership with Fast Company at the magazine’s annual Innovation Festival in New York City. Here are three key takeaways from the event.
1. New technologies are working to reduce the carbon footprint of devices.
“If you look at a product throughout its whole life cycle—from manufacturing, shipping, use, recycle, and reuse—the biggest contribut[ion] . . . to the carbon footprint comes from the use phase,” said Chris Cui, Lenovo’s worldwide environmental, social, and governance (ESG) lead for PCs and smart devices.
Therefore, it’s important for companies to focus on innovations that reduce power consumption over the years that a customer uses a product. Human presence detection (HPD) is an AI-powered technology from Intel that can detect when the user is looking at the screen. Cui and Kevin Beck, senior story technologist at Lenovo’s Intelligent Device Group, detailed how the technology works: When the person looks away, the screen dims, then brightens again when they return their eyes to the screen—eventually shutting off if they don’t return.
Screens are one of a device’s biggest draws of power, so these little moments add up to significant power savings over a device’s life span. Companies can curb the impact by extending the longevity of their devices. “If we can design our products in a way that makes it easy for you as a consumer to repair [them] yourself, or simply send the products back [to us] and we repair for you,” Cui said, “this can help reduce the carbon footprint by simply extending the life cycle of the products.” Editor’s note: Lenovo later added that, in the future, its goals are for 84% of PC repairs to be completed without having to send the machine to a service center, and 76% of PC parts to be returned to their service centers and repaired for future use by fiscal year 2025–2026. These efforts will enable the recycling and reuse of 800 million pounds of end-of-life products by 2026.
2. Consumers are demanding environmental responsibility from the brands they support.
Sustainability and related issues may have once been thought to be concerns important to younger generations, but over time it’s becoming increasingly clear these are universal concerns. Cui pointed out that according to the recent Canalys report, roughly 75% of RFPs include ESG requirements when inviting companies to bid on their business, and she expects that to continue to grow. “What does that mean for us as well as other companies in different industries? If you don’t have a solid ESG strategy, if you don’t invest in sustainability R&D, you might not win the bid,” she said. In fact, “you might even not be on or see the bid.”
Trends are similar among individual consumers, who are getting savvier about not only sustainability issues but also their effect on companies’ bottom lines. They recognize that businesses’ ESG investments might lead to higher product prices, and the majority are okay with that, according to recent research.
Still, Cui sees room for improvement. “As an industry leader, we need to do more,” she continued. “As I mentioned, energy efficiency—like CPU, as well as screens—contributes a lot to that. So that’s why we need to work with, for example, Intel, our CPU partners, to really innovate around that space to help us as well as our customers meet the sustainability targets.”
3. The metaverse is poised to disrupt both work and personal interactions.
Metaverse is a term that has dominated the zeitgeist, but although it’s discussed often, it’s not well understood—because it doesn’t really exist yet. Beck summed it up in a single line: “a shared, 3D, persistent, collective internet of everything.”
More specifically, the metaverse promises a shared digital world where users can interact with other users and objects through virtual and augmented reality. Creating this sort of virtual environment requires the integration of multiple layers—from creation of content and visuals, to cloud and local storage of data, and more. And for it all to feel truly real, the connectivity and immediacy must be seamless.
The technology needed to implement all these layers with no latency is still evolving, Beck noted. The metaverse won’t be here tomorrow. But in the coming years, he believes it could disrupt all sorts of human interaction. “Most people think of it as a consumer, gaming, entertainment sort of proposition,” he said. “But think about the ability for designers and engineers to take the parts that they are already manipulating in CAD [software]: blow them up and walk through them, pick things up and see how they fit together. The opportunities for optimization and better creativity are amazing.
“If it’s not seamless, if it doesn’t feel like real life . . . it’s not fulfilling its promise,” Beck continued. “The ideal piece of technology is the one that you don’t even notice. It just works.”
—
Learn more here about how Lenovo is driving innovation through next-gen technology like the new Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold powered by Intel vPro®, An Intel® Evo™ Design.
Recognize your brand’s excellence by applying to this year’s Brands That Matter Awards before the early-rate deadline, May 3.
