With a focus on the environment, SEMI yesterday announced the five finalists for the SEMICON West 2010 Sustainable Technologies Award. Featured at the Global Care luncheon event, discussions also turned to Sony Electronics’ efforts to achieve a zero environmental footprint by 2050.
Achieving sustainability is an important goal for leading companies today. The annual SEMI Sustainable Technologies Award recognizes the efforts of SEMICON West exhibitors that have developed and introduced equipment, materials or services into the marketplace in the past three years that contribute to sustainable improvement of the environment. The five finalists:
- Applied Materials Inc. for iSYS, a subfab system that synchronizes the operation of vacuum pumping and abatement technologies from 10 major suppliers with the wafer processing tool.
- Edwards Ltd. for eZenith, an integrated vacuum and abatement system resulting in up to 10% power reduction on vacuum pumps and 50% lower fuel for gas abatement.
- Pall Corp. for its Water Reclaim System, which enables water to be reclaimed from silicon processing operations, resulting in 90% of spent process water recovered.
- Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL) for Expedius+, an intermittent open and close technology for de-ionized water (DIW) flow valves, application for idling mode, and built-in scrubber.
- Verigy Ltd. for its V93000 Test Platform, which conforms to virtually all guidelines for low environmental impact.
SEMI’s Sanjay Baliga with representatives from two of the five finalists: Vivien Krygier, Pall; and Mike Czerniak, Edwards.A single award winner will be selected from these five finalists, with the award winner announced at the SEMICON West TechSITE South today at 11:30 a.m.
Reaching for no footprint
Sony announced in April that its global environmental goal was to achieve a zero environmental footprint throughout the lifecycle of its products and business activities. Called “The Road to ZERO,” Mark Small emphasized that Sony’s the goal is to achieve a zero footprint by 2050, with mid-range targets for 2015, according to Mark Small, Sony’s vice president of environment, safety and health.
This is a tall order, but Small believes that it’s possible by focusing on four environmental perspectives (conserving resources, controlling chemical substances, curbing climate change, and promoting biodiversity), and by addressing the entire product lifecycle (R&D, product design, procurement, operations, distribution, and “take back and recycling”).
Sony plans to meet its global 2015 goals by reducing the mass of its products by 10% (from 2008), reducing waste generation by 50% (from 2000), improving its waste recycling rate worldwide by 99%, reducing water consumption by 30% (from 2000), and reducing energy consumption of products by 30% (from 2008).
Sony is vigilant about what goes into products, and conducts audits to ensure that suppliers and vendors are also adhering to sustainability practices. The Green Partner program was implemented in 2003 and now has 3,700 companies worldwide. The program aims to ensure that parts used in Sony’s manufacturing process do not contain globally banned substances. The certification process for direct material suppliers involves supplier audits, signing of the Green Partner Agreement, and submission of various documents to meet Sony Technical Standard SS-00259. The Green Partner certification is valid for two years.
Sony’s recycling programs
“Sony Style” is a trade-in program for many brands of eligible products. The consumer receives an offer for the product’s trade-in value and gets a Sony Style gift card for the value of the trade in: laptops, cameras camcorders, MP3 players, game systems, and mobile phones.
Sony GreenFill e-Recycle Program is a retailer partnership program about easy recycling with all brands accepted for small items. In addition, Sony also focuses on consumer recycling responsibility. In September 2007, Sony launched a major consumer recycling program with drop-off locations nationwide. Any product that is Sony-branded is recycled at no charge. So far, nearly 30 million pounds of Sony products have been recycled.
Sustainability business
“Sustainability is the apple pie and motherhood of the 21st century, and for better or for worse, perception is reality,” Small said. No one is against sustainability, he added, so companies need to get involved and make it happen. However, he reminded the audience, “If it does not make economic sense, then it is not sustainable.”
Companies can make sustainability smart business. For more information on SEMI and sustainability, please contact Sanjay Baliga at [email protected].
— Deborah Geiger, SEMI Global Communications