Taiwan plans to rapidly increase its industrial production capacity of electronic components while concurrently setting policies for its ecological transition. Given that the island is responsible for the manufacturing of a significant part of worldwide electronics components, the sustainability of the Taiwanese electronics industry is therefore of critical interest. In this paper, we survey the environmental footprint of 16 Taiwanese electronic components manufacturers (ECM) using corporate sustainability responsibility reports (CSR). Based on data from 2015 to 2020, this study finds out that our sample of 16 manufacturers increased its greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions by 7.5\% per year, its final energy and electricity consumption by 8.8\% and 8.9\%, and the water usage by 6.1\%. We show that the volume of manufactured electronic components and the environmental footprints compiled in this study are strongly correlated, which suggests that relative efficiency gains are not sufficient to curb the environmental footprint at the national scale. Given the critical nature of electronics industry for Taiwan's geopolitics and economics, the observed increase of energy consumption and the slow renewable energy roll-out, these industrial activities could create a carbon lock-in, blocking the Taiwanese government from achieving its carbon reduction goals and its sustainability policies. Besides, the European Union, the USA or even China aim at developing an industrial ecosystem targeting sub-10nm CMOS technology nodes similar to Taiwan. This study thus provides important insights regarding the environmental implications associated with such a technology roadmap. All data and calculation models used in this study are provided as supplementary material.
翻译:根据2015年至2020年的数据,我们16个制造商的样本发现,每年其温室气体排放增加7.5 ⁇,其最终能源和电力消耗量增加8.8 ⁇ 和8.9 ⁇,用水量增加6.1 ⁇,因此台湾电子工业的可持续性至关重要,因此,台湾电子工业的可持续性至关重要。 在本文中,我们调查了使用公司可持续性责任报告(CSR)的16台台湾电子部件制造商的环境足迹。根据2015年至2020年的数据,我们16家制造商的样本发现,每年其温室气体排放增加7.5 ⁇,其最终能源和电力消耗量增加8.8 ⁇ 和8.9 ⁇,以及6.1 ⁇ 用水量增加。我们表明,本研究汇编的电子制成品和环境足迹的数量密切相关,这表明相对效率的提高不足以遏制国家范围的环境足迹。鉴于电子工业对台湾地缘政治和经济的至关重要性,观察到的能源消耗量增加和可再生能源推出缓慢,这些工业活动可以制造碳锁,阻碍台湾政府实现其减排目标,阻碍其可持续政策。 此外,这一研究所编造的电子部件的数量和环境足量,因此,在台湾的生态研究中也没有提供这种重要的数据。