Investing in Collaborations To Advance Environmental Sustainability
By: Justin Murrill, Director of Corporate Responsibility at AMD
The theme of this year’s Earth Day on April 22 is Invest in Our Planet. It’s the 53rd Earth Day since the inaugural event in 1970 that kicked off the modern environmental movement. Not long after, in the early 1980’s, scientists realized the Earth’s natural sunscreen was thinning dramatically over Antarctica. It spurred a coordinated global effort to reduce and/or replace ozone depleting substances. Today, the hole in the ozone continues to close and it is expected to heal by mid-century.[i]
This success story gives insights into how we can tackle an even more complex threat, climate change. With the ten warmest years on record having all occurred since 2010, including the last nine years (2014-2022) among them,[ii] there is palpable sense of urgency to scale more effective action. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says to avoid the worse impacts of climate change, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions need to be cut in half by 2030[iii] and to “net zero” by 2050.[iv]
Technology continues to play an increasingly important role in transitioning toward a low carbon and sustainable economy. As a leading semiconductor company, a top priority at AMD is designing and delivering leadership products that advance energy efficiency for high performance and adaptive computing. We aim to help others achieve their IT performance needs while reducing IT-related energy, emissions and operating cost. Through innovations in architecture, packaging and software, AMD continues to make strong progress, including powering 75 percent of the top 20 most energy efficient supercomputers (November 2022 Green 500 list).
Another focus area for AMD and the industry is addressing GHG emissions in the manufacturing supply chain. CDP estimates that supply chain emissions are on average 11.4 times higher than operational emissions.[v] AMD works closely with our manufacturing suppliers across a variety of sustainability metrics, including progress toward our 2025 goals for 100 percent of these suppliers to have their own GHG goals and 80 percent to source renewable energy. In 2023, AMD was again honored to be recognized by CDP as a Supplier Engagement Leader (2022, 2021, 2019), an honor reserved for the top 8 percent of CDP survey respondents for actions to help reduce emissions and climate risks in the supply chain.
Collective efforts are increasingly important as our industry mobilizes across the value chain to scale climate solutions. To support these efforts, AMD joined many of our suppliers and customers when we became a founding member of the Semiconductor Climate Consortium late last year. The Consortium convened 70+ companies around the shared purpose to reduce GHG emissions across the electronics value chain. AMD was also selected to be a founding participant in the Responsible Business Alliance’s Senior Environmental Advisory Taskforce. The taskforce shapes the sustainability strategy for the world's largest industry coalition dedicated to corporate social responsibility in global supply chains.
Meanwhile at AMD, our own workforce and operational presence grew in 2022 following two strategic acquisitions that strengthened our company’s continued opportunities for ongoing technology and product leadership, market diversification and expanded customer partnerships. Yet by increasing renewable energy sourcing and implementing energy conservation projects, we continued to execute toward our public goal to cut AMD global operational GHG absolute emissions in half by 2030 (compared to 2020 base year).
I look forward to celebrating this Earth Day with countless AMDers around the globe in AMD-sponsored events or individual efforts. Employee activities include participating in our “get-one-give-one tree” program in North America, cleaning up local parks in Canada and Ireland, making seed balls in India for the upcoming monsoon season, and organizing a recycle and donation drive in Malaysia to get clothes and blankets to those in need. It brings me great pride to be a part of it all, including helping to navigate the broader industry pathway to climate protection.
For more information on our environmental sustainability programs and initiatives, please visit: https://www.amd.com/en/corporate-responsibility/environmental-sustainability
Footnotes:
i https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/12/ozone-layer-hole-update-nasa/
ii https://www.noaa.gov/news/2022-was-worlds-6th-warmest-year-on-record
iii Slide 9: https://report.ipcc.ch/ar6syr/pdf/IPCC_AR6_SYR_SlideDeck.pdf
vi Page 33: IPCC_AR6_SYR_LongerReport.pdf
v https://www.cdp.net/en/research/global-reports/transparency-to-transformation
