Applied Materials unveils strategy for enabling a more sustainable company

Applied Materials’ President and CEO Gary Dickerson unveiled how the company is expanding the scope of its environmental, social and governance (ESG) commitments with a series of 10-year initiatives that will be driven within the company and in collaboration with suppliers, customers and the computing industry.

Furthering Applied’s new vision to “Make Possible a Better Future,” Dickerson introduced a framework for generating positive ESG impact at the company, in the industry and throughout the world.

Gary Dickerson, president and CEO, says, “I strongly believe our responsibility as leaders is to leave the world in a better place. At Applied Materials, making a positive contribution to the community is at the foundation of our culture. I am excited to join forces with our employees, suppliers, direct customers, and the computing and electronics industries to Make Possible a Better Future.”

A More Sustainable Company

To reduce the environmental impact of its operations, Applied is announcing the following goals: 100% renewable energy sourcing in the U.S. by 2022 and worldwide by 2030, and a 50% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by 2030. Applied also announced today that it signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Apex Clean Energy, a key step toward reaching its renewable energy targets. In addition, the company committed to setting targets through the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and reporting in line with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

A More Sustainable Industry

Applied is driving several initiatives with its customers and suppliers to promote greater sustainability industry-wide. This includes improving the eco-performance of its existing and new systems with hardware and software upgrades that reduce energy use, chemical use and cleanroom space requirements. As part of its new “ecoUP” initiative, Applied announced a “3 by 30” goal for its manufacturing systems: on a per-wafer basis, Applied targets a 30-percent reduction in equivalent energy consumption along with a 30-percent reduction in chemical consumption, and a 30 percent increase in throughput density – which is the number of wafers processed per square foot of cleanroom space – by 2030.

A More Sustainable World

On a global scale, AI has enormous promise to accelerate research in areas such as climate change, disease prevention and public health, yet it also consumes a growing amount of power. For AI to reach its true potential, major advances in the power, performance, area-cost and time-to-market (PPACt) of semiconductor devices are needed. Applied is helping enable these advances with the industry’s largest and broadest portfolio of technologies and products which spans creating, shaping, modifying, analyzing and connecting structures and devices. An example of this is Applied’s new Selective Tungsten process technology that removes a critical bottleneck to continued 2D scaling in foundry-logic nodes.