Environment 

For reporting purposes, we categorize our facilities into two groups—“manufacturing” which consists of our three “Assembly, Test, Mark and Pack” (ATMP) facilities in Asia and the remaining “non-manufacturing” sites.

ATMP Sites

AMD’s owned and operated manufacturing facilities perform various combinations of ATMP services at three locations—Penang, Malaysia; Singapore; and Suzhou, China. To track performance in operational efficiency and account for growth, we have normalized environmental emissions and water use from these facilities by a Production Index (PI) that takes into account the number of units assembled and tested as well as process cycle times—an indicator of processing complexity.

Environmental performance indicators for our global operations are housed in a centralized database to effectively manage our environmental data, disclose our sustainability performance and identify improvement opportunities towards our goals. The transfer of wafer manufacturing in March 2009 materially changed our environmental footprint. Accordingly, we reset the baseline for measuring our environmental performance to 2009 (excluding the impact of the fabrication facilities that were transferred in 2009). Thus, the environmental performance metrics are shown for 2009, 2010 and 2011. Environmental performance data from prior years, which reflect the wafer manufacturing facilities transferred in 2009, are available on our here.

Non-Manufacturing Sites

AMD designs, supports and promotes microprocessor and graphics products at numerous design, engineering, sales, administrative offices and data centers worldwide. We collect and report energy and water use along with waste generated for our three major non-manufacturing sites located in Austin, Texas; Markham, Ontario; and Sunnyvale, California. We also report data collectively for other facility locations including Bangalore and Hyderabad, India; Shanghai, China; and Cyberjaya, Malaysia.

Global Environmental Goals and Performance

AMD’s environmental goals were established in 2011 to reflect our business model as a semiconductor design and marketing company, and to appropriately reflect the functional differences between our manufacturing and non-manufacturing sites worldwide. Each goal is based on a five-year timeframe—from a 2009 baseline year (when AMD divested its wafer manufacturing operations) to a target year of 2014.

 View our Environmental Data here

For more information about our Environmental Goals and Performance, view our 2011 Annual CR Report.

Environmental, Health and Safety Management Systems

AMD has established Global Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Standards that we apply to our sites worldwide. These performance-based standards establish best-in-class practices to help protect human health and the environment and include the following environmental standards:

• Legal Compliance
• EHS Due Diligence for Real Property and Business Transactions
• Project Design and Review
• Pollution Prevention and Resource Conservation
• Global Climate Protection
• Waste Management

To ensure we consistently meet these rigorous standards, we utilize robust environmental management systems. The environmental management systems at all AMD owned and operated manufacturing facilities are certified to the International Standards Organization’s 14001 standard (ISO 14001).

View our certificates here.

Periodic assessments are conducted to determine the conformance of our manufacturing operations to our global standards. These assessments are often done in conjunction with periodic EHS regulatory compliance audits. Corrective actions identified during any EHS standards assessment or EHS regulatory compliance audit are expeditiously managed and tracked to closure.

Risks and Opportunities Related to Climate Change

For more than a decade, AMD has publicly acknowledged that climate change presents a range of complex risks to the global community. Due to these risks, we actively manage our operational climate impacts through renewable energy use and energy conservation.

When we transferred fabrication operations in 2009, their associated climate impacts moved outside of our direct operational control and into our supply chain. As a result of this, we have increased our focus on environmental performance in our supply chain. AMD has forged strong relationships with our suppliers and, working with our supply management team, we engage our suppliers on their efforts to manage their climate impacts. We do this in a prioritized way, focusing most of our efforts where there are the largest potential impacts such as in our outsourced water manufacturing operations. While we are not able to publish data on these efforts in this report, we anticipate releasing this information in our next annual report.

We have assessed the potential risks that climate change could have on our business. Although not currently believed a material risk, AMD and our suppliers are exposed to certain physical risks associated with climate change. But there are also potential opportunities for our products to be part of the solution.

Physical Risks

Our employees and operations could be exposed to physical risks to the extent that climate change results in extreme weather events such as flooding or extreme heat and cold. AMD has addressed these risks by requiring each site to develop site-specific business continuity management programs to evaluate the potential for these events and develop procedures to mitigate the risk. Extreme weather could also affect the availability of raw materials used by our wafer foundry operations and direct material suppliers. Although these risks are outside of our direct operational control, AMD tracks these risks and collaborates with our supplier partners to mitigate.

Opportunities

AMD’s technology powers some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. Some of these computers enable researchers to predict changes due to climate change. This research could lead to more accurate forecasting tools that would facilitate adaptation strategies for the effects of climate change. For more information, please see AMD Technology: Enabling A Better World

In addition to powering climate research, AMD technology can help make the world more energy efficient. Not only are our new products energy efficient but, according to the SMART 2020 study, applying digital technology to increase energy efficiency is estimated to have the potential of reducing 15% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. AMD participates in an educational initiative called the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign to help realize this potential.