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A newly formed group of leading hardware manufacturers is meeting to discuss how to reduce emissions in the semiconductor supply chain.
Members of the Semiconductor Climate Consortium (SCC), comprising Intel, Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix, TSMC, AMD, Google and Microsoft, will hold sessions at the COP27 climate conference in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt.
The semiconductor industry’s carbon footprint remains a huge problem; Despite the increasing use of renewable energy for semiconductor manufacturing, hardware manufacturing activities continue to dominate the carbon output of the largest tech companies, as a recent study by Harvard University is to be believed. (opens in new tab)
VCA targets
Its founding members have all expressed support for the Paris Agreement and related accords driving the 1.5⁰C path, claiming they are aligned with the need to “drive climate progress within the semiconductor value chain.”
Created by companies meeting as part of the SEMI Sustainability Initiative, the SCC says it will continue to focus on non-climate environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.
The body claims to be the first global collaboration between semiconductor ecosystem companies focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions along the value chain.
The consortium members say they are committed to a number of goals, including collaboration and alignment on common approaches, technological innovations and communication channels to continuously reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In addition, the group’s goals include pushing for more publicly reported progress on Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions per year, as well as setting short- and long-term decarbonisation targets with the goal of achieving net zero emissions. by 2050.
The production of semiconductors can be harmful to the environment, but it is certainly not the only part of the IT industry that does this.
For example, data centers used in cloud hosting currently consume nearly 1% of global electricity demand or 0.3% of all global CO2 emissions, according to recent research by the International Energy Agency. (opens in new tab)
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