In the second meeting of the 5^th New Energy International Online Forum 2021 on August 6, President Tsai Ing-wen stated that as countries around the world strive for "net zero emissions", the world is stepping into a "zero-carbon economy”. In this new era, because carbon footprints of industry supply chains will be subject to stricter scrutiny and countries will have carbon tariffs, countries must formulate clearer and more comprehensive carbon reduction pathways.

impact analysis 
 

Currently, environmental sustainability awareness around the world is on the rise and multinational companies have also gradually responded to RE 100 initiatives in recent years, such as Apple’s supply chain "clean energy plan". RE100 is a global renewable energy initiative led by the Climate Group and Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). The companies that have joined the project must publicly commit to 100% green electricity use from 2020 to 2050 and report its progress annually. In the first half of this year, more than 10 local companies in Taiwan have announced their participation, including wafer manufacturers TSMC and UMC, double-A brand manufacturers for notebooks like Asus and Acer, and the power supply giant, Delta.

 

It is undeniably easier for brand factories to achieve 100% green power commitments than supply chains given that the former has focused mainly on product design executed in office spaces. On the other hand, product manufacturing is handled by supply chains. However, if brand factories are lead advocators of sustainable environmental protection, it will place pressure on upstream supply chains and drive them to accelerate implementing this too. It is very difficult for PCB factories to directly implement net-zero carbon emissions, but they can indirectly start reducing energy consumption and emissions through researching advanced process technology like ultra-thin hole-filling liquids or green energy substrate materials, for instance. In this way, unnecessary production processes can be reduced via re-optimization. 

 

In the future, intelligent equipment can also be upgraded to improve energy use and production efficiency to achieve benefits such as energy and water-saving and waste reduction. On the other hand, it is also possible to gradually increase the use of renewable energy or to invest in net-zero carbon emission technologies through carbon trading platforms. Additionally, they can participate in carbon offsetting projects to compensate for the inevitable carbon emissions produced through technologies that still have technical restrictions that hinder their carbon reduction. Through measures like this - adopting alternative actions - can support the transition to low carbon energy.