Happy New Year 2025. How are those 2030 sustainability goals coming along? If you committed to 2025 goals, are you on target to reach them this year?
If you feel behind, you have plenty of company. Speed and Scale by John Doerr, published in 2021, laid out a plan for curbing climate change and reaching net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Speed and Scale progress report outlines results so far.
First, the good news. The world is on track for achieving the needed price drops per kilowatt-hour of renewable energy and battery storage. While the goal of having 50% of global electricity come from renewables by 2025 hasn’t yet happened, we are closer than ever before with 30%. Most of the growth is in solar power.
Venture capital (VC) funding for climate tech startups has met the goal of $50 billion per year. This is encouraging. Hopefully, enough of those funded startups will succeed, and we will see drops in global GHG emissions.
Now for the bad news. Goals set out in Speed and Scale for fixing food systems, cleaning up industry, and developing carbon removal are still distant hopes without enough progress behind them. Political will and climate-friendly government policies are lagging. Recent progress on the US front, including the Inflation Reduction Act, is now at risk.
Industry and the Role of Semiconductors
A global view of GHG emissions from industry primarily targets steel and cement production, as those are the largest contributors. Improvements in efficiency are not enough to offset the growing demand for these materials. Semiconductor chips don’t contain steel or cement, but building fabs requires tons of both.
Do you know where the steel in your buildings or equipment comes from? So-called low carbon steel—a term that refers not to the carbon content of the alloy but to the GHG emissions in producing it and is better termed low-emissions steel—is on the rise. By 2030, annual production is expected to be ten times that produced in 2023. That’s still a small fraction of total steel demand, but it’s progress.
Abating emissions from cement production is a harder problem. Some of the climate-related VC funding is going to companies that are improving cement production. But the new technologies are not yet available at scale.
Setting aside steel and cement, there are thousands of industrial materials that the semiconductor industry produces and consumes. Every step you take to reduce raw material consumption or recycle materials or chemicals in-house means progress. A comprehensive emissions and energy audit can reveal which actions will make the most difference the fastest.
General Recommendations
Speed and Scale’s mandate for industry is sound and relevant for companies in the semiconductor supply chain. The advice includes:
- Switch to renewable energy to reduce your Scope 2 emissions. For a perspective on why it matters how you switch, see my December 2024 blog post, “How Green is Your Electricity?”
- Electrify transportation. That includes transporting both goods (shipping products) and people (commuting and business travel). Consider limiting business travel, especially by air.
- Track your Scope 1 emissions and look for opportunities to reduce them. Consider the amount of energy and raw materials you use and what changes will make the greatest difference.
- Audit your supply chain to understand your Scope 3 emissions. Asking suppliers and customers for data and supporting their sustainability efforts can help the entire industry reduce emissions.
- Purchase high-quality carbon offsets to counter your remaining emissions. It’s important that this is not the first step. Do all you can to clean up your internal operations and that of your supply chain before considering offsets. See my 2023 post, “It’s Not Just Carbon—Reducing Greenhouse Gases” for an analogy between carbon offsets and bike riding.
Snapshot from a 3D InCites Member
Our industry is making progress. Consider Onto Innovation, one of the 3D InCites members that issues annual sustainability reports. A look through its 2022 and 2023 reports reveals some telling data.
Onto Innovation has achieved its 2025 goals for renewable energy purchasing, per capita carbon emissions, waste to landfill, and freshwater consumption. This is a sign that the company is putting resources behind its words but also suggests it could have aimed higher.
The reports don’t include data on the number of employees or absolute GHG emissions, so I wondered whether absolute emissions rose even though per capita emissions declined. That’s one limitation of reporting on relative emissions, but the reduction still represents progress. A 48% reduction is significant.
I spoke to Onto Innovation’s Senior Director of EH&S, Max Hekmat, to get a clearer understanding. He explained that the company’s workforce about doubled from 2020 to 2024, as did its annual revenue. Despite that, absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions dropped between 2020 and 2023.
The 2023 report doesn’t mention the electricity reduction goal. Hekmat told me that because production nearly doubled, Onto Innovation decided that electricity consumption was no longer the best metric to track. He noted that electricity use has remained nearly constant in recent years despite growth, and the percentage of clean energy (solar, wind, hydroelectric, or nuclear) continues to rise.
I was hoping to see 2030 goals listed in the 2023 report. The path toward net zero requires celebrating progress and then setting more ambitious goals for the coming years. Even though the report doesn’t reflect it, Onto Innovation is on that path. This month, the company was approved to join the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) and will be developing near-term and long-term goals to align with the targets.
I advise having SMART (specific, measurable, aspirational, relevant, and time-bound) goals for each of the items in the General Recommendations section above. In the typical application of the SMART acronym, A stands for achievable. I agree with Paul Polman and Andrew Winston’s approach in their book Net Positive. “Achievable” sets the bar too low, especially for something as critical as addressing climate change and pollution. Aspirational goals encourage individuals and companies to aim higher.
The time is now for 2030 sustainability goals that push every company in our industry to act faster than they believe they can. Are you in?
