Challenges and Opportunities from Climate Change
By the end of October, 2006, Sir Nicolas Stern, previous chief economist of World Bank, was entrusted by Financial Minister of Britain to write a report titled Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, in which the impact of global warming on the world economy was seriously warned. It¡¦s reported that every ton of CO2 emission will cost 85 USD, but to reduce one ton of CO2 emission will cost less than 25 USD. In other words, we can benefit from greenhouse gas reduce and low-carbon economy is a huge business opportunity. It is estimated that by the end of 2050, the output value of low-carbon technology market will hit 500 billion USD.
The unusual climate change happened in recent years has affected the heating and cooling system of some workshop equipments, also caused unstable pricing and supply of power and fuel, which will increase our cost and affect our revenue.
Interrogation and Examination on Greenhouse Gas Emission
MSI is aware of the risks caused by climate change and gradually establishing related countermeasures. First of all, we should investigate the origin and the total amount of the greenhouse gas out of our company. We set up greenhouse gas management group and introduced greenhouse gas management system to examine the total amount of greenhouse gas emission, and find out the origin of emission, in order to seek for solutions to reduce the emission. MSI is the pioneer in Taiwan IT Industry of releasing the ¡§Greenhouse Policy Statement¡¨ in early 2007 and accomplished Greenhouse Gas Accounting and Verification in 2008.
MSI¡¦s current production flow is mainly R&D at the offices and assembly at the plants, which discharges less greenhouse gas comparing to other manufacturers. To take corporate responsibilities, we declared Greenhouse Gas Policy Statement and established interrogation and examination committee on greenhouse gas emission.
The overall operation schemes for interrogation and examination are in accordance with ISO14064-1 and The GHG Protocol, applying to MSI, MSI Computer (Shenzhen) and MSI Electronics (Kunshan), including 6 kinds of gas: CO2, CH4, N2O, HFCs, PFCs, and SF6. Definition of origins: Scope1, direct greenhouse gas emission, mainly coming from emergency generators, transportations, extinguishers, and the Freon emission of drinking fountain and air condition. Scope 2, indirect greenhouse gas emission, mainly coming from outsourcing power.
To enhance credibility, we held several internal auditing trainings, which have been verified by the 3rd party.
Support Climate Savers Computing Initiatives
The purpose of < Climate Savers Computing Initiatives > is to set up new active goals, through producing or purchasing energy saving computers and components to realize energy saving and reducing greenhouse gas emission. Since its establishment in June 2007, it has 175 members, and the Board of Directors includes 9 corporates or organizations, they are Dell, EDS, Google, HP, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft, Pacific Gas, Electric and world Wildlife Fund, with the goal of reducing 50% computer electricity consumption by 2010. This will not only save 5.5 billion USD energy cost, but also reduce 54million metric tons of greenhouse gas emission, which is equal to emissions out of 1.1million cars.
MSI¡¦s effort in developing high operating voltage has gained a great result in 2008. We developed DrMOS power conversion chip with 93.1% conversion rate, which exceeded the rate of 85% requested by energy star. Facing climate change, in addition to reduce carbon emission in operation, we also emphasize on electricity saving in order to reduce greenhouse gas emission. Currently, we are planning to participate in Climate Savers Computing Initiatives and to become associate member.
Expected Future Change
In terms of business operations, we found out the concept of greenhouse gas management has been adopted worldwide and well implemented in the supply chain of raw materials and products in IT industry. Therefore, MSI have also been requested by its upper tier clients to perform greenhouse gas inventories to serve as a reference for evaluation for future business interactions. Therefore, starting from 2007, MSI initiated its greenhouse investigation work, and in 2008, reported its CO2 emission volume for the first time. Every year hereafter, we will perform greenhouse gas inventories, report CO2 emission volumes, and use these findings to push for relevant carbon-reducing measures.
In terms of finance, we expect that climate change will increase our production costs, even though we currently cannot accurately predict the actual severity of impact or monetary damages. However, we will continue to play our role as a responsible corporate citizen, and start from a standpoint of love and protection for the planet, and not forget about reducing impacts and effects against the Earth and the climate as we manufacture products.
