ESG Steering Committee Chairman Message

In recent years, the macro environment has been roiled by the pandemic, geopolitical tensions, and extreme weather events. Maintaining resilience and growth momentum amid turbulences has become the biggest business challenge of our times. Despite fluctuations in the semiconductor market, our management team and employees focused on value creation for stakeholders, resulting in strong operating results in 2022. For the full year, UMC’s revenue reached a record high of NT$278.7 billion and operating profits exceeded NT$100 billion.

The shifting landscape has also prompted us to strive for higher environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards. Facing a volatile environment, UMC remains committed to prioritizing resources for ESG initiatives and working closely with our value chain partners to fulfill our responsibilities as a corporate citizen. With sustainability an integral part of our business strategy, we actively respond to our stakeholders’ expectations through concrete actions. We are honored that our efforts have been recognized by S&P Global, which ranked UMC first among semiconductor foundry peers globally in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices.

We have made significant strides towards our ESG goals under the company’s 2030 Sustainability Strategy and Blueprint. Last year, UMC became one of the few listed companies in Taiwan to be ranked in the top 5% in the annual corporate governance evaluation conducted by the Taiwan Stock Exchange. To strengthen employee engagement for ESG goals and to retain key talents, the company added MSCI ESG rating as a performance indicator for restricted stock awards. In pursuit of our net zero emissions by 2050 goal, UMC obtained verification of our greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets by the Science Based Targets Initiative, confirming our decarbonization roadmap is in line with what the latest climate science says is needed to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. Last but not least, to provide a positive workplace and to cultivate talent, UMC issued a Diversity and Inclusion Statement and established the UMC Equipment Academy to train equipment engineers. Through the UMC Science and Culture Foundation and volunteer programs, UMC continued to invest in our communities and improve the lives of disadvantaged groups.

In 2022, we further deepened awareness and understanding of UMC’s corporate culture, which is anchored in ESG principles. As part of our culture, the company’s mission is to provide reliable and innovative semiconductor foundry services while working with value chain partners to minimize our environmental footprint. At the same time, we encourage employees to put our core values (integrity, pragmatism, agility, ingenuity) into action to help shape UMC as a company that acts responsibly towards all its stakeholders, and to guide us towards our vision of unleashing the power of technology for a better world.

Thank you for your interest in UMC’s sustainable development, and we are pleased to share with you the progress of our sustainability efforts in this report.