Samsung Electronics announced the “New Environment Management Strategy” designed to address climate change through innovation technologies on Sept. 15. The New Environment Management Strategy comes 30 years after the electronics company came up with the “Samsung Environment Declaration.”
Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman and CEO Han Jong-hee said, “Samsung Electronics, the world’s biggest ICT manufacturing company, will join efforts to overcome a climate change crisis through the development of ultra-low power semiconductor precuts and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.”
Samsung Electronics will shift its management paradigm into an eco-friendly one, he said.
To this end, Samsung Electronics will pour a combined 7 trillion won into the eco-friendly sector, such as reutilization of resources by 2027, Vice Chairman Han added.
Samsung Electronics came up with the New Environment Management Strategy as eco-friendliness and sustainable management are getting more significant and eco-friendliness emerges as a new trade barrier.
Samsung Electronics has begun to attach priority on eco-friendliness, as consumers are willing to buy more expensive eco-friendly products and the United States and Europe lead eco-friendly trends, such as RE 100, a 100 percent renewable energy initiative.
Samsung Electronics consumed 25.8TWh in 2021, the most ICT manufacturing energy consumption, by supplying 500 million electronic devices such as semiconductors, TV sets, and smartphones to the world annually.
Samsung Electronics’ achieving carbon neutrality would mean that the company sees no carbon emissions by taking steps to siphon off the carbon it emits.
Samsung Electronics’ device experience (DX) business and device solutions (DS) business will achieve carbon neutrality by reducing emissions through the development of innovation technologies by 2030 and 2050, respectively.
Samsung Electronics emitted 17 million tons of carbon last year, but if the company achieves carbon neutrality, it would have an effect of planting 2 billion pine trees, or taking 8 million automobiles off the road, the company said.
Samsung Electronics has joined RE 100 initiative, a global commitment to use 100 percent renewable energy at all work sites. Unlike the United States and Europe, which are rich with renewable energy, Korea has unfavorable renewable conditions.
Samsung Electronics, with advanced chip plants consuming large amounts of power, had hesitated to join the RE 100 initiative.
In Korea, the portion of renewable power generation stands at 7.5 percent, one-fourth of the average of OECD countries.
Samsung Electronics released a plan to develop three innovation technologies to cope with a climate change crisis.
Initially, Samsung Electronics plans to reduce power consumption by 30 percent, compared to 2019 levels by applying low-power technologies in the seven electronics products such as smartphones, TV sets, refrigerators and washing machines.
The company has decided to develop the industry’s lowest power consumption memory chips for servers.
A view of the “Green Center”, a lake created with water purified from Samsung Electronics’ Hwaseong plant.(Photos: Samsung Electronics)
A Samsung Electronics official said using items, produced by Samsung Electronics, would amount to joining efforts to improve the environment of the earth.
Samsung Electronics will max out reutilization of resources. The company will build a circulation system of producing items with recycled materials and extracting materials after retrieving used products to reuse them.
Samsung plans to max out the reuse of water at chip plants with large amounts of water consumption.
