IBM strives to conserve resources across its operations. Two examples are water and materials conservation.
Water conservation
IBM's evaluation of water use at its plants and labs indicates that IBM's microelectronics operations represent its most water-intensive operations at these facilities.
In 2010, the microelectronics manufacturing operations that are primarily located in North America represented 82 percent (nearly 9,800 thousand cubic meters [TCMs]) of the total annual water used (approximately 11,900 TCMs) at IBM's manufacturing operations and laboratories worldwide.
IBM established an annual water savings goal of 2 percent of total annual water usage in its microelectronics manufacturing operations in 2000, based on the water usage of the previous year and measured as an average over a rolling 5-year period.
New water conservation and recycling initiatives in IBM's microelectronics manufacturing operations during 2010 achieved a 1.8 percent savings. These savings were achieved through ongoing efficiency enhancements that reduced water usage in certain operations.
Over the past 5 years, new water conservation and recycling initiatives at IBM's microelectronics manufacturing operations have achieved an average 2.8 percent savings versus the 2 percent goal.
Materials conservation and reuse
In addition to its waste recycling programs, IBM has a wide range of initiatives that conserve materials through reuse and recycling in the company's products and in its procurement of paper and wood-based packaging. Some examples:
- Product recycling:
As part of its product end-of-life management (PELM) activities, IBM began offering product take-back programs in Europe in 1989 and has extended and enhanced them over the years. Since 1995, when IBM first began including in its annual corporate environmental report the volumes of product waste it collects and recycles, IBM has documented the collection and recovery of approximately 1.8 billion pounds (over 807,000 metric tons) of product and product waste worldwide through year-end 2010.
In 2010, IBM's PELM operations worldwide processed over 36,600 metric tons of end-of-life products and product waste, and 96.5 percent of the total amount processed was recycled or reused. These PELM operations sent only 0.6 percent to landfills or to incineration facilities for treatment versus IBM's goal to not exceed a combined 3 percent of the total amount processed. - Product packaging design:
To minimize packaging waste, IBM strives to keep packaging to a minimum and, whenever feasible, composed of recyclable and/or reusable materials.
In addition to prohibiting an array of substances from IBM packaging, IBM's Packaging Guidelines, developed in 1990 and updated many times over the years, identify methods, processes and designs to reduce packaging volume; and promote the use of packaging materials that are reusable, recyclable and/or contain recycled content.
In 2010, the integrated worldwide packaging engineering team saved 842 metric tons of packaging material from the implementation of 38 packaging redesign projects worldwide. These projects delivered an annual cost savings of $8.8 million. The following highlights a few of the projects implemented in 2010:- IBM System Storage® DS3000 package redesign project: After an audit of the package design for this product, IBM's packaging engineers determined that it could be redesigned to reduce its size and weight. In 2010, the package was redesigned to hold eight units per pallet, rather than the original one. This redesign assessment project eliminated the use of an estimated 300 metric tons of corrugated fiberboard and wood annually and saves $450,000 in annual transportation costs.
- IBM Retail Store Systems 4800 logic unit packaging reduction project: The package for the 4800 logic unit was redesigned to utilize several units per pallet, versus the traditional one unit per pallet, for our Latin America and Mexican markets. The result was a considerable decrease in overall package size and weight per unit shipped. This project saved $1.3 million annually in materials and transportation costs, while saving an estimated 70 metric tons of packaging materials annually.
- IBM Green SigmaTM DOX power packaging reuse project: In the past, IBM's suppliers and IBM manufacturing sites had different packaging solutions for each step in the manufacturing process, which resulted in additional operational costs and wasted material. IBM packaging engineers designed a package and process that would eliminate the need to use separate packaging solutions for each manufacturing step in the supply chain. The result was an efficient, robust and reusable package that eliminated over 90 metric tons of packaging materials annually from the waste stream while achieving a cost reduction of $355,000 annually.
IBM also has a dedicated team of packaging engineers working on incoming packaging with the company's suppliers. In 2010, the IBM packaging team also implemented 19 packaging design projects with its suppliers. The resulting packaging solutions reduced the packaging materials from incoming parts by 204 metric tons and saved $1.7 million in both material and transportation costs. Examples may be found on our Protective product packaging page. When suppliers apply the design improvements achieved through collaboration with IBM to packaging designs for other customers, the environmental benefits and cost savings can be far-reaching.
For more information, see Protective product packaging. - Voluntary Environmental Goal for Packaging Materials:
IBM's voluntary environmental goal for packaging materials states that paper-/wood-based packaging directly acquired by the company will be procured from suppliers who source from sustainably managed forests where such sources exist.
In 2002, when IBM first established this goal, sufficient quantities of sustainable sourced packaging materials were not yet available for much of the company's needs. With a continued focus on this objective by IBM and its suppliers over the years, in 2010, 99 percent of the paper-/wood-based packaging IBM procured came from suppliers who contractually warranted that the source was derived from forests managed in an ecologically sound and sustainable manner.