Environment and Energy Policy
Intel is committed to increasing energy efficiency and lowering the total carbon footprint for our products and services.
As one of the largest semiconductor manufacturers in the world, Intel has a long history of leadership in corporate responsibility and sustainability and has set ambitious goals to reduce its environmental footprint. We believe that manufacturing leadership should go together with environmental sustainability. Our technology and solutions also enable industries and businesses to increase efficiency and reduce their overall footprints.
Key Issues
ICT-Enabling Climate Change Solutions
Studies verify that information and communications technology (ICT) devices, powered by Intel’s silicon products, can enable significant progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by driving end-use energy efficiency gains. We call these gains the “Handprint” effect – our technology enables other sectors of the economy to reduce their footprint. Government policies should recognize and encourage a bigger role for the ICT industry in devising climate change mitigation and adaptation solutions.
Smart Energy Efficiency Regulations
When regulating the energy efficiency of ICT devices, governments should carefully classify devices to compare like products so that different classes of products are not subjected to ‘one-size-fits-all’ limits. Regulations should also respect consumer preferences and avoid constraining device functionality. Poorly designed regulations (e.g., idle power, network standby power requirements) applied to ICT devices and data centers can restrict the product energy efficiency and functionality that delivers the handprint benefits. Such restrictions can especially affect the rapidly growing deployment of data centers and Internet of Things technologies.
Chemicals Management Policy
Chemicals are essential to the semiconductor industry. Intel is committed to the safe management of chemicals to protect our workers and the environment. Government policy regarding chemicals should align with environmental protection, the safe use of chemicals, and technology innovation.
Given the complex scientific and engineering challenge to identify and replace substances such as PFAS in our high-volume manufacturing facilities, this will require collaborative R&D efforts at the semiconductor industry level. Accordingly, government support to fund such R&D initiatives will be instrumental in our industry’s success in developing alternatives that are more sustainable in parallel to the further development of capture technologies.
Government reviews and approvals of chemicals should be performed in a timely fashion, supporting rapid innovation in product development.
For over a decade, Intel has been one of the top corporate purchasers of renewable electricity in the U.S. and energy-efficient performance is a driving force in the design of our products. Intel has a history of improving the energy efficiency of its products: from transistor to device to platform level. As a part of Intel’s RISE 2030 goals, Intel committed to working with the technology ecosystem to achieve carbon-neutral computing. To achieve this, Intel is partnering with PC manufacturers to create more sustainable and energy-efficient PCs as well as collaborating with its cloud service providers to reduce server and data center energy use and reduce carbon emissions. In 2022, Intel set a goal to achieve a 30% reduction in the client reference system design carbon footprint by the year 2030. These reference systems are used in collaboration with ODMs and OEMs to further reduce the carbon footprint in PC systems that end users purchase.
We set challenging 2030 goals to increase product energy efficiency by 10x for Intel client and server microprocessors to reduce our Scope 3 emissions. Moreover, global climate change concerns have driven policymakers to expand beyond traditional product energy efficiency to focus on a product’s overall environmental sustainability, with a key emphasis on “product circularity.” Specifically, this “circularity” entails improving product durability for a second life, reusability, upgradability, repairability, and software/operating system support, as well as mitigating the use of hazardous chemicals in manufacturing and completed products. Intel supports this broader sustainability focus in support of product circularity.
@IntelPolicy
Ideas and perspectives promoting a thriving innovation economy from Intel’s public policy team.