Emissions Rising Due to Increased Power Consumption
Semiconductor manufacturers are having a hard time tackling the problem of increasing carbon emissions attributable to an increase in their electric power consumption in the current super-cycle. This problem is affecting foreign companies such as TSMC as well as South Korean companies such as Samsung Electronics. Much attention is being paid to how they will deal with it with the importance of ESG management on the increase.
The Financial Supervisory Service announced on April 6 that Samsung Electronics emitted 13.6 million tCO2e of greenhouse gas last year whereas the amount had been 6.72 million tCO2e in 2015. The figure of SK hynix soared from 2.79 million tCO2e to 4.68 million tCO2e in that period. The semiconductor companies’ greenhouse gas emissions showed a substantial increase while those of LG Electronics and Hyundai Motor Company changed little.
The direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions of TSMC, in the meantime, increased from 5.87 million tCO2e to 8.34 million tCO2e from 2015 to 2019.
The problem is that the semiconductor manufacturers’ emissions will further increase along with their production volumes. “The government needs to come up with a solution,” said an industry source, adding, “Korea Electric Power Corporation is the sole electricity supplier in South Korea and it is not easy for those companies to reduce the emissions by building their own renewable energy power plants.”