Greenpeace has slammed several top tech companies in the electronics supply chain for their abysmal efforts so far in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, despite consumer electronics companies claiming to have made considerable progress.
In its 2023 Supple Change report, Greenpeace highlights that supply chain companies make up around 70% of the electronics industry emissions, noting that a reduction in this area of manufacturing would contribute to a significant reduction overall.
At this rate, though, the campaign group predicts that the semiconductor industry will produce more than twice as many emissions as Portugal by 2030, while using as much electricity as the whole of Australia.
Electronics supply chain environmental scrutiny
None of the 11 suppliers analyzed by Greenpeace have committed to halving their carbon emissions by 2030, which is a key requirement of the Paris Agreement 1.5°C goal.
The number of companies using low-impact procurement methods, like RECs, to increase their renewable electricity procurement ratio, was also noted. While this plays into the companies’ figures, Greenpeace says that RECs and green pricing “rarely result in the addition of new renewable energy capacity to the grid.”
Moreover, Intel, TSMC, Samsung Electronics, Foxconn, and Luxshare Precision all produced more emissions in 2022 compared with 2020. Despite the increase, Greenpeace’s decision to pick numbers from 2020 is notable, because this was a year of global shutdown due to the pandemic, and production reduced drastically.
It’s also worth noting that increasing demand (and production) hinders a company’s ability to reduce emissions, and with more digital and connected devices on the market, that looks to be the case moving forward.
Overall, SK hynix, LG Display, and Pegatron look to be the highest-ranking companies in the semiconductor, display manufacturing, and final assembly fields respectively, while nine out of the eleven firms were commended for their transparency.
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