Samsung Electronics will invest billions of dollars in environmental projects

MOSCOW, 15 Sep — PRIME. Samsung Electronics is investing over 7 trillion won ($5.02 billion) by 2030 in large-scale environmental projects that aim to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. The world’s largest manufacturer of microchips and mobile phones announced this on Thursday.

The technology giant will invest this money in research and development of technologies for filtering greenhouse gases and capturing carbon dioxide during the production of microchips. In addition, the company wants its mobile device business to achieve carbon neutrality even earlier, by 2030. This was announced by the director of environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy Samsung Kim Soo Chin. In addition, the company plans to expand the recycling of lithium and plastics.

“These initiatives should ultimately help meet the needs of our customers … in this way we increase interest in our products,” Kim points out. “It’s costly, but we will try to make a business opportunity out of it.”

Samsung said it has joined a group of global corporations that have pledged to go completely renewable (RE100), following in the footsteps of their peers at Apple, TSMC and Intel.

For Samsung’s semiconductor fabs and other industrial manufacturers in South Korea, a stable and affordable power supply is a prerequisite for competitiveness, but renewable energy has so far grown too slowly to meet their requirements, analysts say.

“We’re a direct manufacturing company…so we have different, layered challenges,” Kim said.

In 2021, the chip and components business accounted for 15.6 million tonnes, or 90% of Samsung Electronics’ total greenhouse gas emissions of 17.4 million tonnes, the company said. Business devices, including mobile devices, accounted for 10% of these emissions.

In addition, Samsung’s chip and component business consumed 144 million tons of water in 2021, or 88% of the company’s total consumption of 164 million tons. Samsung intends to keep water withdrawals at 2021 levels while chip production continues to rise.

In addition to its goals of carbon neutrality and water conservation, Samsung plans to expand the recycling of materials such as lithium and cobalt used in its devices.

It currently collects e-waste from around 50 countries and aims to expand this list to around 180 countries by 2030.

Samsung also wants to increase the recycled plastic content of its devices to 50% of all plastic components by 2030 and 100% by 2050, as well as expand the production of energy-saving chips and devices, Kim said.

“At the end of the day, we are a technology company … And so we will continue to help solve the problem of climate change through the development of technology,” he added.