Sustainability Menu
Sustainability Menu
In addition to the dedication to providing core products with market competitiveness to meet our customers' demands, as a citizen of the Earth, UMC has also taken on the responsibility of developing green products with efforts to cherish resources and protect the environment starting from the source. In addition to reducing resource consumption and unnecessary pollution during the production process, we have taken our efforts a step further to acquire green factory certificates to strive to be a good green role model.
Considerations for green products at each stage |
Product Liability |
In June 2006, UMC completed Hazardous Substance Process Management (HSPM) and has received IECQ QC080000 qualification, which made UMC the first semiconductor manufacturer in the world to achieve QC080000 HSPM for all fabs. To ensure the products provided to customers meet international standards and customer requirements like EU RoHS, EU REACH, Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer et al., we tried our best to reduce environmental impact and to reach customer request. |
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Regarding product safety, UMC poses no direct potential threats to its customers or the general public since UMC does not have its own end products. However, to ensure that products provided to customers meet international standards and customer requirements, UMC established a cross-divisional HSPM committee to improve the efficacy of green product management. We have completed third-party QC080000 IECQ certification for management of hazardous substances to ensure that UMC provides products that conform with RoHS directives and customers' requirements.
Hazardous Substance Management |
The QC080000 IECQ HSPM standard is based on the "flow orientation" measure to manage the use of hazardous substances, which covers the stages from design and development, procurement, and manufacturing to shipment. The success of this system demonstrates UMC's capability in managing hazardous substances and ensures UMC provides environmental friendly products that are free of hazardous substances that conform to customers' requirements and international regulations.
Hazardous Substance Free Policy |
Based on awareness among all employees, and through design and production management controls and improved technical abilities, UMC shall provide products in accordance with the demands of customers as well as laws and regulations for the management of HSF (Hazardous Substance Free) materials, to fulfill our duty as a global citizen to protect the environment and to protect personal health and safety.
Green Procurement Process of Raw Materials |
Hazardous substances control is also applied to material merchandising. All materials that violate the control will be deemed as disqualified products and returned to the suppliers, who are then required to provide correction and prevention measures.
Constructed a New System for Evaluating Raw Materials |
To effectively manage new materials used in newly developed manufacturing, UMC has constructed a sound process for evaluating new materials to determine if they are banned / controlled toxic or hazardous substances and fully determine their impact on environmental safety and health.
SONY Green Partner |
UMC became a Sony Green Partner in 2003, and passed and maintained qualification since then. These actions demonstrate that UMC's progress in hazardous substance management has gained recognition from our customers.
Hazard Chemicals Replacement Project and Objectives |
UMC has plans to phase out hazardous raw materials through replacement programs to reduce the impact of chemicals to the environment. The target substances are chosen based on international environmental protection trends, government laws and regulations, and customer requirements.
UMC has been paying close attention to the development trend of international environmental protection regulations for a long time. In the drafting stage of relevant regulations, UMC has preplanned to launch the hazardous substance "assessment plan" and, as soon as the regulations are confirmed and publicized, UMC will immediately implement the "replacement plan" in all fabs.
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In response to domestic and international concerns regarding persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as PFOS, PFOA, PFOA related substances, etc., an autonomous replacement plan was reached in December 2017. We remain up-to-date on international environmental regulations and have started paying attention to PFBS as well.
Green Chemical Product R&D Program |
UMC upholds the spirit of environmental protection continuously to develop recyclable and environmentally friendly chemicals, used to replace the chemicals in the current chemical cleaning process, to reduce the impact of semiconductor manufacturing process on the environment. Since most of the special chemicals used in the cleaning process of semiconductors are imported from major international suppliers and the ingredients of the chemicals are secrets of the suppliers, it is quite difficult for the users to reduce the use of the chemicals or carry out recycling process. For this reason, UMC has taken the initiative to launch the green chemical research and development project many years ago, and set relevant goals since 2018, arming to design directly new green chemicals under the promise of environmental protection for replacing the above-mentioned imported chemicals, and achieving the goal of chemical reduction, recycling and reuse, and reducing the impact of chemicals on the environment.
In addition, the company also pays attention to the progress of EU environmental protection regulations and green processes. In 2022, it is expected to develop a post-cleaning process that complies with the EU green environmental protection process specifications, changing the traditional solvent cleaning to hydrophilic NMP-free (N-Methylpyrrolidinone). This special chemical can be widely used in the back-end key cleaning process of green electronic components in various factories of UMC, expanding the environmental benefits of UMC green products. In the future, UMC will continue to reduce, recycle, and prohibit environmentally harmful organic chemicals to achieve the goal of being environmentally friendly.
Life Cycle Assessment, LCA |
LCA is a tool to improve products and the manufacturing process and reduce pollution. It helps decision makers to become involved with more environmental aspects. The steps to conduct LCA include: Scope Definition, Inventory Analysis, Impact Assessment, and Result Interpretation. In 2005, UMC authorized the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) to implement a Life Cycle Assessment in each fab.
The results of such an assessment would help UMC to meet the Ecological Design Directive (ErP Directive) vis-à-vis its products, understand the impact on the environment caused by customer products manufactured at UMC, and develop improvement plans. From raw silicon to chips, investigations were conducted targeting energy consumption, materials, and pollutants of each customer product. Through the evaluation of the environmental impact on the entire supply chain and manufacturing processes, the impact on the environment resulting from products is clarified and the result of evaluations is used as a reference for the environmental management system. The assessment results are open to the public and can be provided for reference upon customer request. According to inventory results, environmental impact is greater from manufacturing rather than from suppliers. As a result, UMC continues to improve its processes, reduce resource consumption and bulk materials, with the goal of minimizing environmental impact over time.
Product Carbon Footprint |
Although UMC is not an end product manufacturer, it strives to help customers to produce green products with high quality and achieve environmental sustainability and coexistence. In order to establish the basis for UMC to further promote green products, green manufacturing processes and green design, UMC has actively implemented the Total Carbon Management Project, internal GHG emission inventory and verification, and Carbon Footprint Inventory Plan.
History for Promoting Carbon Footprint Management |
Comparing the carbon footprint of each fab in various stages of the greenhouse gas reduction plan promoted by the fabs of UMC in Taiwan over the years, it can be found that the carbon footprint of each product in 2021 is lower than that in 2011, with an average reduction of 41%, which demonstrated that UMC’s carbon reduction projects over the years are considerably successful.
Product Water Footprint |
UMC recognized the importance of water as a natural resource very early on. Water resources are particularly important in Taiwan due to its mountainous topography, heavy rainfall along the mountain slopes, dense population, and extensive industrial and commercial developments. UMC complies with the Business Water Footprint Accounting standards developed by Water Footprint Network, an international NGO. In 2010, we completed business water footprint verification for our 8-inch and 12-inch wafer fabs and identified that water usage during direct processing was greater than that of the indirect supply chain. Blue water and gray water were the main sources of water used. In 2015, UMC began working with our suppliers to complete ISO 14046: Water Footprint Assessments of various products manufactured by UMC plants. In 2020, the water footprint inventory was launched throughout the company in accordance with the new standard, and third-party verification was implemented in the representative fab (verifications were conducted for Fab 8A and Fab 8S in 2021).
Future Directives |
LCA to Go Project |
The European market is one of the important markets for UMC. It's an advanced area with regard to the development of green measures. We are honored to participate in FP-7 as it gave us the chance to invest efforts in developing and establishing green measurement. Joining this project improved our ability to inventory and predict CFP, thus enhancing our foundry service to customers by providing them with specific CFP information. The simplified LCA tool that we developed could help SMEs quickly obtain CFP without incurring high costs.
To fulfill its duties as a global and corporate citizen, UMC has made efforts to promote carbon disclosure with significant investment of financial and human resources. With the help from Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), in 2010 UMC became an official member of the FP7. We started working with 18 teams from 9 member organizations from industry, government and academia to jointly develop "Boosting Life Cycle Assessment use in SMEs: development of sectoral methods and tools." With extensive experience in carbon footprint and robust supply chains, UMC led the case study for carbon footprint tool applications for the semiconductor industry to build a "carbon footprint calculator" that includes a simple universal calculation method. With UMC's carbon footprint experience and the support of supply chain partners, our collaboration with the EU in green technology provides small and medium enterprises in Taiwan with comprehensive, tailored, low carbon services. We also help them acquire information on their products' carbon footprint with minimal time and resources to reduce negative impact from green trade barriers. At the same time, the results of the "LCA to go" project will promote carbon reduction and raise low-carbon competitiveness for the industry. With considerable efforts in recent years, UMC has achieved international standards in terms of green technology development and received wide recognition among different EU sectors.
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