Samsung announces eco milestones

Samsung’s PlanetFirst initiative announced that it had reached “key milestones” in its eco-friendly scheme. The tech giant claims it has “achieved comprehensive sustainability goals”, including:

• Reduced sales-normalised greenhouse emissions from its manufacturing facilities by 38% during the first half of 2011, when compared against emission levels at the end of 2008
• Attained global eco-labels for 2210 product models as of the end of 2010, making the company number one in the world for environmentally friendly products for the fifth straight year
• Invested an additional 1.6-trillion won (ZAR10.25-billion) in environmentally friendly product development and green manufacturing sites in 2010

Park Sangbum, senior VP of Samsung’s environment centre said, “Samsung continues striving to meet the global, companywide commitment laid out in 2009 under our Eco-Management 2013 initiative. We’re focused on instilling an eco-management mindset in all employees in order to become a true leader in sustainable business practices.”

Samsung aims to increase the progress of four “core objectives”:

Reducing greenhouse emissions from its products and facilities — Samsung says that it has reduced greenhouse gasses by 4.58 tons. This puts it on-track to reach its target goal of 50% reduction by the end of 2013. Samsung products are also said to be 18.5% more energy-efficient when compared to levels in 2008. Samsung has also developed an emission tracking system.

Further “eco-friendly” products — roughly 2000 products have been stamped with the global eco-labels, with Samsung claiming that it has “achieved Good Eco-Product ratings for 90% of its product lines in 2010, surpassing its intermediary goal”. Samsung established an internal eco-product development committee in order to “encourage the creation of innovative green products and solutions”.

“Eco-management” partnerships — Samsung held various initiatives in Korea, China and the US in order to “engage local communities to propose solutions to environmental problems”. As an example, Samsung “adopted” a piece of nature, such as a mountain.

Research and development investment — Two years of various investments equalled 2.7 trillion won (ZAR17.3 billion).

The full sustainability report can be read here.