Chipmaking is a polluting industry, with companies using dangerous chemicals and producing large amounts of carbon dioxide to turn sand into technological marvels. Now, Intel has released a new plan that aims to effectively address environmental concerns -- at least when it comes to emissions.
Intel's latest Climate Transformation Action Plan (CTAP) contains steps the company will take to become a 100% sustainable technology company. The chip giant spelled out the company's commitment over the next three decades to address the "risks and opportunities" faced by global society due to climate change.
As Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger explained in the plan's foreword, the company is now in a new era of global expansion of computing power. Gelsinger noted that the evolving economy brought about by the "magic of silicon" has the ability to make industries more sustainable and provide new solutions to combat climate change, but these solutions must ultimately be put into practice.
Intel says it is committed to making "magical" silicon chips that have minimal environmental impact. The company has already set a target to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from global operations by 2040, and it is now taking this further to achieve net-zero GHG emissions across its entire value chain by 2050.
Intel's plan provides data and infographics on three areas where the company is investing to curb greenhouse gas emissions. These areas include emissions from business operations (Scope 1), indirect emissions from electricity use (Scope 2), and indirect emissions from the company's supply chain, downstream processing and product use (Scope 3).
The plan notes that Intel established aggressive greenhouse gas reduction goals more than two decades ago, investing in emissions reductions, chemical substitution, renewable energy and alternative energy. These actions have allowed Intel to avoid 80% of its cumulative Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions over the past decade, despite a threefold increase in manufacturing output and increasing sophistication in chip manufacturing technology.
Intel's latest emission reduction goals include the use of 100% renewable energy by 2030, which shouldn't be a difficult goal to achieve since Intel already used 93% renewable energy in 2022. The company also hopes to build new factories in the United States that meet the country's Green Building Council LEED standards and launch a cross-industry initiative to find green chemicals with lower global warming potential.
In less than seven years, Intel plans to make its client and server microprocessors 10 times more energy efficient, which will ultimately help reduce Scope 3 emissions. As Gelsinger highlighted, Intel is a founding member of the Semiconductor Climate Alliance and a sponsor of Catalyst, the semiconductor supply chain's "renewable electricity accelerator."