Semiconductor industry – contributing to carbon reduction

The semiconductor manufacturing process uses greenhouse gases called perfluorocompound gases (PFCs) that ESIA member companies are committed to reduce. Achieved through substantial investments, these efforts implement reduction practices at operations across Europe.

Semiconductors themselves make significant contributions to mitigating carbon emissions, facilitating energy savings, and reducing power consumption in society that enable the European Green Deal’s climate goals, primarily by improving the efficient use of energy.

The brochure entitled 'European Semiconductor Industry: A strong contributor to reduc-ing Carbon Emissions' outlines the smart solution improvements enabled by semiconductors in areas such as automobiles, smarter mobility solutions (hybrid and electric vehicles), buildings, lighting, industry production, cloud storage and computing, and by facilitating the use of renewable energy sources.

Some of the targets the industry is contributing to include the following.

A climate neutal Europe

The European Union has pledged to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, with a revised 2030 emission reduction goal of ‘at least 55%’. The European Green Deal, aims at using technological innovations that are enabled by semiconductors as the main tool for decarbonising economies.

Innovative smart solutions

Semiconductors provide innovative smart solutions that contribute to greener mobility and more energy efficient products. These include smarter mobility; energy efficiency and climate change mitigation; and energy efficiency in the IoT.

A proven track record

Although the semiconductor industry is a minor contributor to overall greenhouse gas emissions by sector in Europe, it remains very committed to playing its part to reduce these emissions. Many semiconductor companies have also set their own GHG emissions reduction goals.