April 22, 2022 By Candice Callahan Principal Member of the Technical Staff for EHS and CSR, GlobalFoundries From our energy-efficient fabs to stringent emission controls, GlobalFoundries (GF) has a long history of environmentally responsible manufacturing and operations. We recognize climate change is an unprecedented global challenge, and we are committed to sustainability and minimizing our impact on the environment. The theme of Earth Day 2022 is “Invest in Our Planet.” It is in this spirit we would like to share some very positive updates around two key environmental topics for GF: the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission and water conservation. The success stories below clearly show how GF’s sustainability efforts and investments are making a positive impact. Thank you and congratulations to the many members of the global GF team who made these successes possible! Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions At the end of 2021, GF completed its three-year resource conservation goal aimed at achieving savings in annual GHG emissions by 11,900 metric tons of carbon equivalents (MTCE). To put that in perspective, 11,900 MTCE is roughly equivalent to the annual GHG emissions from 5,000 U.S. homes each year, or the GHG emissions from a large jetliner circling the globe about 4,000 times. Thanks to our global teams’ successful execution on multiple GHG reduction and avoidance projects, GF was able to far exceed the original target, achieving over 4 times our goal and decreasing our normalized GHG emissions by 19%. Below are a few of the GHG reduction projects completed in 2021 that contributed to GF’s success: Fab 9 in Essex Junction, Vermont, completed projects optimizing the use of specific gases in multiple manufacturing tools, and installed several new point-of-use (POU) abatement units. These POU installations are part of a multi-year project at Fab 9 to reduce GHG emissions. Fab 10 in East Fishkill, New York, completed multiple electricity conservation projects and avoided GHG emissions through a robust, proactive point-of-use chiller leak detection and repair program. Fab 7 and GIGA Fab in Singapore completed several projects in 2021 to reduce GHG emissions, including new chamber cleaning processes and optimized gas flows on specific tools. In 2022 we are looking at many new ways to build upon this momentum and continue along the path to GF’s Journey to Zero Carbon goal of reducing total GHG emissions by 25% from 2020 to 2030. Water Conservation At the end of 2021, GF completed its three-year resource conservation goal aimed at conserving 340,000 m³ (90 million gallons) of water annually. Again, to put that in perspective, it’s an amount of water roughly equivalent to 136 Olympic-sized swimming pools. GF was able to far exceed the original target, achieving over 4 times our goal and decreasing our normalized water use by nearly 23%. In addition, absolute water withdrawal in 2021 slightly decreased as compared to 2020, even though GF as a company significantly increased production during that same time period. Below are a few of the water conservation projects completed in 2021 that contributed to GF surpassing its goals: Fab 7 and GIGA Fab in Singapore completed a major water reclamation project resulting in significant water savings as well as demonstrating the feasibility of further water reclamation for other fabs. The project conserves water by reclaiming, treating, and reusing wastewater from several different Fab processes. Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany, increased the recycling rate of the ultrapure water recycling plants by 25%, leading to significant annual savings in water withdrawal and reduced wastewater generation. Fab 8 in Malta, New York, installed and optimized a reverse osmosis (RO) treatment system that both allowed for more efficient treatment of site wastewater, and allowed for the cleaned water to be reused in facilities systems. We will go into further detail on these and many other sustainability and conservation projects in GF’s forthcoming 2022 Corporate Social Responsibility report, to be published in June. In the meantime, click here to learn more about corporate responsibility and ESG at GF.
