Last month’s announcement that the United States “rejects and denounces the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals” is consistent with the current administration’s isolationist policies. They don’t want to invest any time or money in helping people in other countries, nor do they support the rights of all Americans.
But this is 2025, not 1925. The world is interconnected whether everyone likes it or not, and semiconductor chips power that connectivity. We live and work in a global economy. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), while not a cure-all for the world’s problems, are a roadmap for a vision where ten billion people can survive and even thrive. Are the 2030 goals spelled out in the UN SDGs realistic or achievable? Perhaps not, but faster progress toward them is a move in the right direction.
Five Critical UN SDGs
There are 17 UN SDGs. They are all admirable and worth pursuing, but no one can pursue 17 goals at once and hope for progress. The UN Global Compact, recognizing this, suggested that businesses focus on five of the goals where they can make the greatest difference. These are:
- Gender Equality
- Climate Action
- Living Wage
- Water Resilience
- Finance & Investment
Refining the list further, let’s relate three of these to the semiconductor industry.
Gender Equality
Who is the CEO of your company? Chances are that it’s a man. While I can think of a handful — Lisa Su, CEO and Chair of AMD; Belén Garijo, Chair and CEO of Merck Group, KGaA Darndstadt Germany; Laura Matz, CEO of Athinia and CTO at Merck Group; Debbie Gustafson, CEO and Board Member of Energetiq Technology; and Françoise Chombar, CEO of MELEXIS — the reality is women CEOs in our industry are few and far between. There are women in top leadership, most commonly in charge of HR or finance, but not a lot.
What about your board of directors? What percentage of the directors are women? The UN Global Compact states, “When boardrooms are gender balanced, enterprises are 20 per cent more likely to have improved business outcomes.”
The UN SDG for gender equality has two targets for 2030: representation of women across all levels of management, and equal pay for equal work. Do your company’s goals align with these targets, and are you likely to reach your goals in the next few years? It’s worth thinking about whether the women in leadership roles at your company are being compensated fairly. That means financially and in terms of recognition and authority (which might be reflected in their title).
Beyond management, what does your engineering department look like? When you’re hiring new college graduates for technical roles, that’s an opportunity to diversify. There are many smart young women earning STEM degrees, far more than when I was in college. The student body of Harvey Mudd College is now gender balanced in all departments. My graduating class (I won’t say what year) was 26% women, an all-time high back then.
I applaud the work of many companies in our industry to mentor young women and to promote women into leadership roles. However, a close look at the composition of the C Suite and the boardroom reveals that there’s still room for improvement.
Climate Action
Cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) in half by 2030 is a daunting task that may feel impossible. The semiconductor industry is in a unique position because, while our manufacturing processes produce GHG emissions, our products also enable energy-saving adaptations. Ideally, we can cut the former while increasing the latter. That requires commitments to science-based targets that aim to keep global temperatures to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. (Spoiler alert: 2024 already passed the 1.5 °C threshold, so we need even more drastic action to avoid more serious warming.)
One of the most effective ways to reduce your GHG emissions is by powering your facilities with renewable energy to the greatest extent possible. That recommendation applies to all companies, but it makes the most difference for those running manufacturing processes 24/7. If your company is fabless, you can put pressure on your suppliers to invest in renewable energy.
Our industry is making progress on reducing emissions intensity on a per-chip or per-revenue basis. Dropping total emissions is much harder as the demand for chips skyrockets. Can we make it happen? I don’t know, but let’s put our heads together and try to figure out a scenario in which it works. That requires cooperation and collaboration up and down the supply chain and with peers who are otherwise competitors. (Partnerships are Goal 17, by the way.)
Water Resilience
Water resilience is about ensuring that people worldwide have access to clean, fresh water. Population growth along with increasing droughts and floods makes that goal harder and harder to achieve. Water availability is becoming less reliable.
With a single fab requiring around ten million gallons of fresh water per day to operate, water resilience is critical to our industry, and scarcity is a serious risk. We need reliable supplies of water to run our facilities while not stressing the regions where fabs are located.
Filtering and recycling water is part of the answer. For example, TSMC’s new fab in Arizona is supposed to use around 4.75 million gallons of water per day. An upgraded water purification system that can produce recycled water that’s pure enough for use in wafer processing rather than just for cooling may be able to cut consumption to one million gallons of water per day. That’s a significant drop.
In addition to minimizing in-house water consumption, fabs and other manufacturers can work with local governments and utilities to optimize where they source their water.
Your Turn
Adjustments in hiring practices, energy and water management, and supply chain policies can help support the UN SDGs. Community service work and philanthropy are other avenues to pursue. Which SDGs is your company addressing, and how are you and your colleagues stepping up?
