Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Emission reduction strategy
Climate Change is one of the biggest challenges of our times and therefore we understand that efforts from all sectors of society are necessary to deal with this problem.
As a worldwide company, we already integrate climate change aspects and risks in our sustainability strategy and business continuity plans. With this approach, we strive to be prepared and capable of dealing with extreme weather events, ensuring, among others, that there are no significant interruptions in the supply of our products and that the risk associated to people safety is minimized.
At an early stage, Infineon started developing strategies to reduce energy consumption as well as the amount of material used to the minimum technically necessary, thereby limiting CO2 emissions.
CO2 emissions can also be reduced by limiting perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) emissions. These gases are primarily used in the etching processes needed to structure wafers as well as for the cleaning of production equipment and despite all scientific research, there is no viable alternative to replace all PFCs used at semiconductor industry.
Our Emissions
We commit
The semiconductor industry uses greenhouse gases in wafer-etching processes for structuring wafers as well as for cleaning production equipment.
These greenhouse gases cannot be replaced by another class of substances and account for 80.7 percent of scope 1 emissions.
Where possible and appropriate, we counter this trend by continually:
- Optimize our processes through more efficient production methods and through efficient exhaust air abatement schemes.
- Use of alternative gases with higher utilization rates and lower greenhouse gas potential helps minimize the increase in emissions wherever possible.
- Invest voluntary in PFC exhaust air abatement enables us to avoid around three quarters of our potential direct scope 1 emissions, which corresponds to avoiding around 692,060 tons of CO2 equivalents per year.
- We have set ourselves the target of implementing measures that will generate total emission savings of 50,000 tons of CO2 equivalents by the end of the 2024 fiscal year. As a result of the installation of additional PFC abatement systems brought into operation in the 2023 fiscal year, we were able to achieve a further reduction of 24,101 tons of CO2 equivalents.
We performed and will continue to perform regular reviews at our sites to identify potential in our own electricity supply. At our frontend site in Dresden (Germany), for example, we have been operating a highly efficient cogeneration unit for some years now. The potential for our own green electricity production on our sites is limited due to the topology of the buildings and other factors and is in the lower single-digit percentage range with regard to our total electricity consumption.
You can find more about this topic in our Energy Efficiency and Climate Protection page.
We receive excellent results
The carbon footprint is the result of our actions to minimize our emissions. You can see our carbon footprint here.
Have a look on our Sustainability Report page 30-32.