Climate agenda slips at TSMC, Greenpeace says

Greenpeace and several other climate organizations have singled out TSMC for criticism, saying the world's largest semiconductor contract manufacturer needs to do more to reduce “its massive carbon footprint”. The trio have created a website, "Time to Chip In", which makes a number of claims about TSMC, including that the …

[Potemkine!]

Ah, Greenpeace.... the ones who pushed Germany to close its nuclear power plants so now they are compensated by coal and gas. This organisation is so relevant when it speaks about the climate that I would understand nobody would listen to it.

[Jellied Eel]

This organisation is so relevant when it speaks about the climate that I would understand nobody would listen to it.

Sadly, too many people do. Kinda curious what the carbon footprint of Greenpeace, 350 and all the other neo-luddites is. I'm sure they ethically offset their carbon, and can offset those costs by flogging offsetting scams and consultancy. But if they were so concerned, perhaps they should just stop using chips, and anything derived from fossil fuels.

Wonder when TSMC and other large energy users will announce their orders for ultra low carbon SMRs?

[blackcat]

From the website they are pushing ESG so any worthwhile and reliable low carbon energy source will be ruled out.

[codejunky]

hmm

So the commenters telling me chip fabs are a strategic resource can now rail against this insanity because chip fabs in the west will already be so much more expensive to run that adding green nonsense to it will only increase costs.

[Anonymous Coward]

TSMC might have bigger concerns right now...

All things considered, the hippies at Greenpeace can be safely ignored by TSMC for at least a few years.

Frankly, other than whaling ships most of the world can (and does) ignore them for long periods of time. Their customers (like Apple) can greenwash the resulting products for them more easily then they could reach any "100% renewable" target.

No real surprise that they are singling out companies from Taiwan either. Setting aside the fact that they are as badly infiltrated by state sponsored plants as the NRA, even the honest ones are stuck picking fights with companies they MIGHT be able to shame or influence in jurisdictions outside places like China.

TSMC would draw heat from the greens regardless, just due to it's market share and scale of operations, but also because many of the other worse players are in jurisdictions that make them effectively immune to pressure. So Greenpeace will yap and TSMC will make minor overtures for a wile longer, and will follow the lead of other big Semi's companies for deploying greener tech as it become available.