Environment

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.

• Phase I: Replacement of PFOS completed in 2015.
• Phase II: Replacement of PFOA completed in 2016.
• Phase III: In 2017, UMC is leading the industry to achieve overall PFOA-related replacement.
• Phase IV: from 2020, UMC began to pay attention to PFHxA, GHG and initiated assessment plan evaluation. A little bit of NMP is replaced，full replacement is under evaluation.

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.

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.

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.

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.

• In 2009, delivered the world’s first certified carbon footprint wafer product; completed Type III Product Environmental Labels and Declarations verification.
• UMC participated in the EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) from 2011 to 2014 and worked with both private industries and academia to research and develop approaches and tools for a Simplified Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) system, allowing our clients to quickly and conveniently predict product carbon footprints.
• Since 2011, UMC has carried out a comprehensive carbon footprint inventory throughout the company and conducted verifications on representative fabs (Fab 8A and Fab 8S in 2021).

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.

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).

• Continue to improve water usage efficiency (WUE) within the plant, and reduce both water usage / wastewater generation to directly reduce water footprint of our products.
• Work with suppliers to improve overall WUE of the entire supply chain to achieve joint water conservation and protect our planet.

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.