Samsung lags behind commitment to renewable energy: Greenpeace
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Seoul (AFP)
Smartphone and chip giant Samsung Electronics’ adherence to a headline-grabbing pledge to switch to renewables in the United States, China and Europe accounts for less than 20% of its global electricity consumption environmentalists Greenpeace said on Tuesday.
The company must broaden and deepen its engagement if it is to have a real impact in the fight against climate change, the campaign group said in a report, urging it to take similar action in more countries within “deadlines”. aggressive â€.
The company is the flagship subsidiary of the Samsung group, by far the largest of the family-owned conglomerates that dominate business in South Korea, the world’s 12th largest economy.
In 2018, Samsung Electronics pledged to produce all of its energy use in the United States, China and Europe from renewables within two years, a target it said in March it had achieved.
But renewables only made up 17.6% of the company’s global energy mix in 2020, Greenpeace said, stressing that its two main production centers – South Korea and Vietnam – were not included in the budget. initial commitment.
The two countries account for around 80% of Samsung Electronics’ global electricity consumption and in both it “depended heavily on fossil fuels,” Greenpeace said in its report, which was based on Samsung’s disclosures and statistics. -even.
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In the South, Samsung has its own solar panels and geothermal energy facilities, but they generated only “a tiny fraction” of its gigantic electricity consumption of 17 TWh last year, or more than 70 % of the company’s global consumption.
Samsung Electronics is among the South’s largest consumers of electricity and the situation poses a challenge for President Moon Jae-in’s goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050.
This is an ambitious target given that, according to the International Energy Agency, only around 6% of the South’s electricity came from renewables in 2020.
But Samsung Electronics is not among the more than 300 global companies – including its biggest rival for Apple smartphones – that have signed the RE100 pledge by pledging to use only renewable electricity, Greenpeace said. .
“Samsung has demonstrated that they can achieve 100% renewable energy in a short period of time in the United States, Europe and China,†said Hyunsook Lee of Greenpeace.
“It is essential to set a target of 100% conversion of renewable energies in Korea and Vietnam, which are vulnerable to the climate crisis.
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