Key Points

• The microelectronics and advanced packaging technology (MAPT) industry drives the Fourth Industrial Revolution and faces sustainability challenges

• The carbon footprint of the ICT sector depends on the entire value chain and requires coordinated efforts to reduce emissions

• Understanding key metrics, such as the Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) framework and Net Zero, are crucial to understanding this challenge

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In our previous exploration, "Why the Semiconductor Industry Cares about Sustainability", we examined how technological advancements, particularly in the form of industrial revolutions, have driven economic growth and addressed societal challenges. The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), characterized by rapid advancements in information and communication technologies (ICT), is fundamentally driven by innovations in the microelectronics and advanced packaging technology (MAPT) industry. This sector is poised for significant growth, projected to expand from $600 billion to $1 trillion. However, this progress comes with an increased carbon footprint, underscoring the imperative for sustainable development to mitigate climate change and limit global temperature rise to below 1.5°C by 2050.

MAPT innovations are crucial in developing ICT solutions that enhance communication, defense, healthcare, space exploration, transportation, and renewable energy systems. These technologies not only elevate our standard of living but also offer pathways to more sustainable manufacturing processes and energy-efficient computing systems. Understanding the environmental impact of these innovations requires a comprehensive look at the entire value chain, from raw material extraction to end-of-life disposal.

The carbon footprint, as defined by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is a universal yardstick used to measure the total amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) emitted into the atmosphere annually by a person, family, building, organization, or company. For the ICT sector, this encompasses emissions from various stages of the value chain, including production, transportation, usage, and disposal. Given the complexity and interdependency of the ICT value chain, measuring carbon footprint accurately is challenging. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard, developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), categorizes emissions into three scopes: direct emissions (Scope 1), indirect emissions from electricity (Scope 2), and all other indirect emissions (Scope 3).

Current studies estimate that the ICT sector contributes between 1.8% and 2.8% of global GHG emissions, with some estimates as high as 6.3%. This translates to 1-1.7 gigatons of CO2 equivalent emissions, with about 23% coming from embodied emissions—those from upstream processes. Individual consumer electronics users contribute significantly to these emissions. Without concerted efforts to reduce the carbon footprint, the ICT sector's contribution to global emissions could rise to 37% by 2050.

Achieving sustainability in the ICT sector requires coordinated efforts from all stakeholders, including chip makers, fabless designers, system integrators, scalers, and hyperscalers. The SRC's Decadal Plan for Semiconductors highlights the urgency of advancing system architectures to prevent a potential energy crisis by 2040. Stakeholders must view sustainability as a collective social responsibility to ensure the planet remains habitable for future generations.

Stakeholders such as consumers, academics, corporations, governments, and NGOs involved in the sector should be aware that sustainability is a social responsibility and must be realized to keep planet Earth a sustainable source of life for its dwellings.  Sustainability has different meanings for different ICT design and development experts. The understanding of the concepts of sustainability gets even muddier when corporations and policymakers do not align on the same end goals to conserve and preserve the planet. Based on interviews, literature review, and sentiment analysis, Samuel et al argued that the concept of sustainability is too vague and needs a clearer definition and purpose that can tackle the challenges in an integrated way by considering environmental, social, and economic factors instead of treating them separately. Furthermore, the study finds that poor definition and understanding of sustainability is leading to false reporting where it is challenging to compare sustainable products effectively due to inconsistent and non-standardized data hidden in aesthetically pleasing but uninformative reports. However, not everything related to sustainability is grim. Several organizations are beginning to realize the need for sustainability and are making it a core object and mission of their business. Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) framework, launched in the mid-eighties, started to gain noticeable traction within the last decade. Standardization of the metrics by rating agencies such as Bloomberg, Sustainalytics, and MSCI made the framework more mainstream, such that it is trusted by regulators and governments. Net Zero is another key metric that organizations can use to gauge their impact on the environment. Net Zero refers to removing carbon emissions to a small amount of residual that can be absorbed and sustainably stored by nature and other carbon dioxide removal measures, leaving zero in the atmosphere. An interesting study by management researchers reviewed 13 criteria across ESG to benchmark the performance of semiconductor companies toward sustainability. Based on a semiconductor company’s progress towards ESG, the researchers were able to analyze and group the companies into either a high-performance group or a low-performance group. The companies in the high-performance group had not only set a clear path to achieving NetZero for themselves, but they also audited the organizations in their supply chain to provide considerable guidance. The efforts undertaken by several ESG-responsible organizations must be accelerated to meet their aggressive NetZero targets in the next 2-3 decades. The companies making investments to advance their sustainability initiatives will have technology ecoadvantage as such initiatives yield considerable profits and provide a competitive advantage.

Our journey towards sustainability is both challenging and essential. With significant investments in research and development, supported by government incentives, the microelectronics industry can drive innovations that transform our future from one of uncertainty to one filled with optimism. By embracing sustainability as a core objective, the ICT sector can play a pivotal role in creating a more sustainable and equitable world. In the upcoming article, we will explore several innovations within ICT that are creating solutions for a sustainable planet.