Convening Industries for a Sustainable Future | The Six Five Summit

We're joined right now by Todd Brady. He's the chief, uh, uh, sustainability officer for Intel. And, um, uh, what a great conversation and a great time to have a conversation about sustainability in semiconductors, uh, with Intel.

Todd, glad to have you. Um, Intel's in such an interesting place. I've been calling covering Intel for decades, which makes me a newbie by Intel standards.

But Intel's in this really amazing point where the companies sort of, uh, uh, launching this giant foundry business in ways that they haven't been in for in the past, and building a lot of foundries, maybe even more than they have in the past, all at the same time, at, at a time when issues of sustainability, um, are of a greater concern both to our society and to intel more than ever before. What a time for you to have the gig. You have?

Absolutely, super exciting time in Intel products, Intel Foundry, Intel corporate, redefining the company, and, uh, and then, then sustainability. Everything going on outside the company, climate change, water pressure, you name it. There's a, there's a lot to do and in ai and how can we use AI to solve some of these big challenges that are out there?

So, super exciting time to be in the industry and in sustainable. And over the next seven hours that we talk, we're gonna get through all those topics. Now we be seven hours.

Um, so I, let's start with a few of these. So one of the things that I think is, is, um, most amazing, I don't even know where you start with amazing when it comes to semiconductor, um, uh, manufacturing, but the timeframe, the, the pace of innovation is incredible, uh, particularly right now. Um, and it has been for a long time, but really right now has very amazing ways, ai, uh, driving a lot of that, both for AI and because of ai, but the planning involved in creating the facilities to make semiconductors stretches out into decades and our understanding of climate change and, um, uh, the, the things that we do that pollute and the things we can do to keep from polluting, um, are changing so rapidly.

How do you take a 15, 20 year process and, and plan for the latest advances that may be five or 10 years away? Yeah, YY you know, it's, it's one of the challenges that we have in such a dynamic industry. What, whatever we think we're gonna do today, fast forward five, 10 years, guess what?

The, the whole environment's changed. Um, so one of the things that we've done in order to anchor ourselves into the future is, uh, you know, years ago, I, I think we published, I, I joined Intel in 1995. In 1994, we published our first, you know, corporate responsibility report where we put out environmental goals.

And back then they were annual goals and we'd set each year. Uh, one of the things that I, I did when I came into my position and said, Hey, we need to look longer term. We need to have these anchors in the future, these north stars that we're, that we are moving towards, because there's gonna be so much dynamic change year to year.

And so we established decade long goals. Uh, we did that first in 2010, set goals in 2020 that did that again in 2020, and set those goals through 2030, even 20 40, 20 50. Those goals would include things such as net zero greenhouse gases and go waste landfill, net positive water.

But these are big audacious goals that give us that star. So no matter what's going on day to day, year to year, we know where we're headed. And that's been very helpful in grounding this in our strategy.

So let's, uh, speak of ground. Let's talk about waters. Why don't we start there?

Um, what did water use look like for semiconductor manufacturing in 1990 and what's it gonna look like in, in 2003? Yeah. The, the biggest use of water in semiconductor manufacturing is ultra fear water.

Uh, the water that used to rinse off the surface of the wafer in between the hundreds of different process steps. Yeah. And, uh, back when, when I first started working on that, years and years ago, state-of-the-art technology for ultra pure water was, it would take about two gallons of, of tap water, the water you're getting from the city, the municipality to produce one gallon of ultra pure water.

So about a 50% efficiency. 1 gallon of tap water to, to one gallon and vulture water. And so that's the first step is how do you use that resource more efficiently, because we're gonna need more and more of it as, uh, as we move forward.

Number two then is, okay, can you reclaim and reuse that water? And so we've invested heavily in our manufacturing operations all around the, the world in state-of-the-art, water reclaim facilities where we use the water in our manufacturing, water, your water. We collect that water, we treat it, we send it back for reuse in our operations.

And then the third part of our strategy and, and the way that we get to net zero water, net positive water, then again, the concept is for every water gallon of water we're extracting from a watershed, we want you to turn a gallon or more of water. And so I walk through the first two steps, use it more efficiently, then reuse it over and over again. And then the third part is invest outside the company, in the communities in which we operate to put water back into what the local watersheds.

An example would be working with the, the, the local farmer agricultural industry, which uses 75% of the water in many places around the world where we operate. If we can help them be more efficient, that results in more water back to the opera. And so we've been able to achieve that now in four countries, us, India, Costa Rica, Mexico.

So, you know, again, looking ahead, looking strategically, what do we want accomplish as a plum company? When we have that in our star, we can then put the strategy in. Plus That's pretty amazing.

Um, yeah, it's, it, what about building materials and how, uh, that's changed because again, and I, and I, I mentioned change. 'cause I think that, well, all of us started before today, and so we remember a time when things are different and it's hard to not wanna make, uh, make things the way they were and think about how they can be in the future. Yeah.

Yeah. Several years ago when, when we were building our buildings and going through a a, a growth spur, this was even a decade or so ago, um, we began looking at what, what's called the US Green Building Council Lead Standards. And, and these are, you see these a lot in office buildings and whatnot, right?

This, this building is, has made Platinum lead goal, et cetera. And, uh, we actually went to the US Green Building Council and said, Hey, we would like to develop standards for manufacturing facilities as well. They didn't exist at the time, uh, because they had written their standards around a, an office building in New York City, as an example, not a semi.

And so I just lead house once that was know that was Oh, did okay. Yeah. That was a thing, right?

It was. And there was, there were streams, things we had to do and obvious things we had to do to hit that certification level. Exactly.

So we took that framework and said, how can we apply that to a manufacturing facility? And so we actually worked with the US Green Building Council. We, we had a committee of other manufacturers from a wide variety of different industries, and came up with standards on how to apply that, that thinking, that lead thinking, which is essentially how do we decide in the building to be more energy efficient, to be more water efficient, to, um, you know, generate less waste, those kinds of things.

And so we've integrated that into all of the construction, which we have going on all around the world today, and building lead factories, which then at the end of the day, result in factories, which reduce our costs because we're using less electricity, as an example. So it, it's really gonna win-win in focusing on that design from the ground up. I'm trying to think back to all the CEOs of Intel I've talked to about sustainability over the years.

Um, and, and I know that it has been a top down concern, if you will, and I suspect it's been a bottom up concern. But how do you get buy-in to an organization whose goals and to individuals whose goals are just not just like, sell more stuff, get higher prices, do it cheaper, faster, better, um, get to work on time, uh, you know, all, all, all of the, all of the, uh, uh, things that we're trying to do, uh, or the, that people at the company are trying to do. How do you get people bought buying into sustainability?

Yeah. Yeah. And it makes a great point.

There's so many priorities within any company. So how do you get focus? So, so one thing I would say is, I've been very fortunate in that joining Intel almost 30 years ago, this, this ethos, this cre credo in sustainability and, and building with the environment in mind was, was there the foundations, uh, Gordon Moore was, was very much the environmentalist.

And, you know, founder, absolutely. He was, you don remember one of our founders, um, uh, the, the, uh, author of Moore's Law, uh, after retiring from Intel, he started up his own foundation, which is all focused around environmental, uh, yeah, the Gordon Moore Foundation. Uh, and, and so he, he created that, that that bedrock, that foundation.

So that, that was hugely gap issue. Um, and, and then you had individuals within the company, uh, when I first joined who were, you know, leading manufacturing and, and had that belief in we can, we can grow, but we can reduce our impact as we grow, and that's what we should be doing. So, so I can't take credit for any of that that was there.

I'd latched onto it and said, okay, how do we, how do we take things once level? Um, one of the ways that we've been able to focus people's attention is quite frankly, tying sustainability to everyone's pocketbook, everybody's bonus. So at Intel for over a decade now, um, all of everyone's bonus from, you know, pat, our CEO all the way down to an entry-level technician is tied to our performance on sustainability targets.

And we have those, uh, that, that we implement every year. One of those targets this year you mentioned sales is actually tying sustainability to our sales. So our sales team has a target to achieve a certain number of sales tied to sustainability.

Um, we have similar targets for product. What does mean product does Tie to Sustainability. Yeah.

So as they're selling a product, are they selling the sustainability aspects of that product as part of the sale? And is that important in closing the sale? And so they're tracking that our product groups have targets around energy efficiency and designing new products.

Um, some of the platforms and systems, uh, designing them in a way that it produces the, the carbon footprint that's part of their goals, their targets. And then on the operation side, Intel Foundry that I'm a part of, it's, it's traditional things. Like we, we have a target around, uh, renewable electricity target now releasing our carbon machines, our water usage, our waste generation set.

So linking that. Really, really, yeah. This might be in the left field, but I, I, I was surprised to have one of my good friends throw away climate denial comment to me, maybe just 'cause he was trying to tick me off.

'cause that's what my friends do to me. But I wonder if that plays a role, uh, internally or externally at all. Just the, the people who just don't want to believe that climate change is a, is a, is a manmade real thing, even though science tells us that yours is a, a company of science.

Is that an issue ever for you? Uh, sure. An issue both internally, externally, right?

You take any topic, any issue, and you're gonna have people on all sides of the issue. And so I think the way to, to diffuse that, uh, from my vantage point is to link sustainability to the business style. If we make a more energy efficient product that has better performance per watt, we're gonna sell more of those products.

That's hard to argue with. If we use less electricity in our operations where you're gonna reduce our operational costs, that's hard. And so, to the extent that we can tie as many of our sustainability initiatives as possible to the benefit to our business benefit, and we believe they're, they're linked, then that diffuses, uh, a lot of the discussion or a lot of the debate around, uh, you know, some of the issues that can become politicized.

So it sounds like you're saying that, that, uh, you can prove out that the benefits go beyond climate. Exactly. And that, that, that, uh, it, and not to be too pollyannaish about it, but it sound, in closing, it sounds like you're saying Intel's a better company.

Intel's got a better product and is a better company than its competitors because of its sustainability efforts. Y you said it better than Koon. Thank you.

You're hired so, so, so well done. Let, let give you another, I I don't think I got another 29 years in me, but I appreciate the offer. No, but seriously, you, is is that a thing?

I mean, is Intel a better company than, I don't have to name your competitors, but then we all know who your big competitors are because of your sustainability focus? Oh, we, we absolutely believe that our sustainability is a differentiator for us. It, it's, it's an area where we focus considerable time and resources.

All we use, uh, in a way that many of our competitors have not. We do think that differentiates us. Um, more and more of our conversations with our customers going forward is they, they have all set similar sustainability goals.

They're all trying to achieve net zero greenhouse gases. We can help them achieve that faster and sooner. We think that, uh, is an advantage for us.

Just fantastic. Todd Brady is the Chief Sustainability Officer for Intel. We appreciate your time.

Great. Thank you. Great to be here.