GF Making Progress on its Journey to Zero Carbon

By Brian Raley
Director of Corporate Environmental, Health, and Safety and Sustainability, GlobalFoundries 

GlobalFoundries (GF) has a long history of sustainability and is committed to corporate responsibility. In 2021, we embarked on a Journey to Zero Carbon. The goal at that time was to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 25% from 2020 to 2030, even with an expanding global manufacturing footprint. Independent analysts consistently rank our overall ESG performance in the top 10 percent versus our peers.

Building on that success, earlier this year GF announced two new long-term goals that align with the Paris Agreement on climate change: to achieve by 2050 both net-zero GHG emissions and also the use of 100% carbon-neutral power. (Net-zero is the term for significantly reducing GHG emissions and offsetting any residuals, with the purpose of mitigating global warming and keeping the global rise in temperature well below 2°C above pre-industrial times.)

Those are formidable challenges, but it's imperative that we meet them for many different reasons. One is that our customers are increasingly choosing to engage with more environmentally responsible suppliers. Another is that more and more people want to work at an organization where sustainability is prioritized. A third driving force is the need to meet ever-more stringent government regulations. Finally, and fundamentally, the world's health simply depends on it.

So, how will we get there? I'd like to share with you the outline of GF's emissions-reduction roadmap to 2050, which has both GF-specific and industry-wide components. Internally, our strategy has two main pillars, and GF's manufacturing facilities and expansions will be designed, operated and built in accordance with them. Externally, we are collaborating with outside organizations to develop industry-wide solutions.

Reducing Direct (Scope 1) Emissions from GF's Sites

The first pillar comprises opportunities to reduce GHGs by focusing on GF's direct (Scope 1) emissions, mainly from the manufacturing processes at our worldwide sites. One initiative is to replace some of the heat-transfer fluids currently used in various wafer manufacturing processes with alternatives offering comparable performance but with lower global-warming impacts.

Another opportunity has to do with the cleaning of the tool chambers in which wafers are placed for processing. GF has hundreds of production tools in its manufacturing facilities globally. Retrofitting many of them so that more environmentally friendly nitrogen trifluoride can be used as a chamber cleaning agent, instead of traditional chemistries, will lead to a significant overall reduction in GHG emissions.

A third Scope 1 opportunity is to install abatement systems with the capability to capture and treat fluorinated waste gases (i.e., GHGs) from production operations in GF's legacy fabs. Abatement is the term used for the various systems which treat the gases used in semiconductor manufacturing.

Reducing Indirect (Scope 2) Emissions

The second pillar of our strategy addresses the indirect emissions which occur as a result of the production of the electricity that GF's sites consume.

First and foremost, we are engaged in finding any and all practical ways to reduce the amount of electricity GF's fabs require. This has cost benefits in addition to reducing our environmental footprint. However, since we're aiming for net zero, usage reduction alone ultimately isn't going to be enough, and so we are working to source lower-carbon/carbon-free electricity sources as well.

There is no one universal way to do this, because each of our sites has a unique emissions profile related to its electricity usage based on the age of the site, its original design, the infrastructure in place, what the source of power is, the characteristics of the local power grid, and so forth. For example, at GF's oldest manufacturing site in Burlington, Vermont, the goal is to install solar generating systems and maximize the use of that site's large campus for solar production to help meet our renewable energy goals.

But at GF's newest manufacturing facility, our Singapore expansion that opened in 2023, the goal from the outset was to achieve a good balance between GF's production requirements, significantly lower energy usage, and the use of lower-carbon energy sources. It is solar-ready by design, to reduce the use of fossil fuels in its electricity supply.

Taking that a step further, earlier this year GF signed a multi-year power purchase agreement with Keppel Ltd. under which Keppel will provide 150-180 MW of electricity yearly from the forthcoming Keppel Sakra Cogen (KSC) Plant. KSC is expected to be one of the most advanced and energy-efficient power plants in Singapore, enabling GF to reduce CO₂ emissions from its Singapore operations by up to 70,000 tons per year. Also, with the ability to use hydrogen as part of its feedstock, it is expected that KSC ultimately will be able to provide GF with a resilient source of even lower-carbon power.

An additional Scope 2 strategy is for GF to purchase Renewable Energy Certificates as needed. These represent investments in renewable energy projects that may not necessarily be directly connected to GF's electricity sources, but which provide an offsetting credit.

Industry Collaborations

In a global industry as complex and essential as semiconductor manufacturing, with a large and diverse supply chain, there are industry-wide issues which no one company can solve by itself. Collaboration with others is essential. That is why GF is a founding member of the Semiconductor Climate Consortium, and was the first semiconductor manufacturer to join the IMEC SSTS (Sustainable Semiconductor Technologies & Systems) program. We anticipate that these engagements will lead to solutions to improve the emissions performance of the industry as a whole.

Learn More

GF has many opportunities to reduce its direct GHG emissions, to reduce its energy usage, and to remove carbon from its energy sources. To learn more about GF's Journey to Zero Carbon and our other environmental, social and corporate governance initiatives, please click here to view our 2024 Sustainability Report.

Brian Raley is the Director of Corporate Environmental, Health, and Safety and Sustainability at GlobalFoundries. Based in Malta, New York, Brian has been with GF since its founding in 2009. He has focused on sustainability efforts in the semiconductor industry for 29 years.

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