Product Environmental Management

Acer's Integrated Strategy on Energy and Climate Change

The pressing need to mitigate climate change has resulted in the acceptance of the Bali Roadmap of COP13, UNFCCC, for deep cuts on the greenhouse gas emission. The world's governments embarked on an 18-month process to develop a new deal for global climate action post 2012. The new deal is to be agreed in Copenhagen in 2009 (COP15). Energy and climate must be a key issue to business in a carbon-constrained age. The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) has demonstrated the importance of climate risk and opportunity. Not only do more institutional investors endorse CDP, but also more prominent companies are invited to participate. At the same time, the supply chain's greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting was initiated in 2008 through the Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration (SCLC) of CDP. We believe that energy and climate issue will play a more important role in the global CSR performance rating. For example, Greenpeace's Greener Electronics has added energy criteria from the second quarter of 2008.

Despite the Hokkaido G8 Summit's vague conclusion on GHG reduction, Acer remains fully supportive of the reduction targets proposed by the EU, which are to cut GHG emissions by at least 50% by 2050 globally and 30% by 2020 from industrialized countries (compared to 1990 levels). To limit climate change to 450ppm CO2 equivalent in the 21st century, we also call for global greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2015.

As a leading IT company, Acer's major missions are not only to provide the innovative products to meet our customer needs, but also to enhance the quality of life of people at large. Acer recognizes that climate change is currently a big challenge of global sustainability, and firmly believes that proactive actions must to be integrated into Acer's long-term business strategy.

We commit to support global efforts on the deep cut of GHG emissions and on the negotiation for a sound climate policy framework. From 2008, through integrated energy and climate change strategies, Acer began conducting a comprehensive examination of all potential methods to conserve energy and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Not only has Acer taken up the initiative to fight global warming, we aspire to lead our supply-chain members to take part in the fight against global warming.

SMART 2020: Enabling the Low Carbon Economy in the Information Age – is the world’s first comprehensive study of ICT sector’s growing significance on the world’s climate. The report shows that while ICT’s own sector footprint – currently two per cent of global emissions – will almost double by 2020, ICT’s unique ability to monitor and maximize energy efficiency both within and outside of its own sector could cut CO2 emissions by up to five times this amount. Recognizing the aggressive role for combating global warming, Acer will put more efforts to influence our suppliers to implement GHG inventory and reduction.

The integrated strategy of energy and climate change covers four major areas: GHG emission accounting, carbon reduction, energy conservation and efficiency, and low carbon business model. Our goal is to become a climate-friendly PC brand. GHG inventory first started from our operation in Taiwan in summer 2008 and extended to the global operations in autumn 2008. "Inventory" covers manufacturing, distribution and operation. Low carbon products will be our focus for carbon reduction. A global survey was conducted in 2008 for purchasing renewable energy. In the areas of energy conservation and efficiency, actions included implementation or assessment on green office, business travel, low carbon vehicle, and so on. Acer expects to finalize its short-term, mid-term and long-term GHG reduction targets in 2009.
Climate changes and global warming are the most severe threats that mankind faces today. These phenomena not only bring serious impacts on our environments and ecological systems, but could also result in dramatic changes to our economy and society in ways that are hard to predict. Being a contributing member of the global society, Acer strives to continue its efforts to control actual risks and opportunities through "Acer's Integrated Energy and Climate Change Strategy" so as to fulfill its social responsibilities.

• GHG Inventory
  
  

  Acer began a corporate-wide GHG emission examination in April 2008, with the GHG Protocol established by the WBCSD and WRI as the central guiding principles in the examination. The entire inventory deploys in five stages. The first stage focuses on the operations within Taiwan. The second stage focuses on the operations outside of Taiwan. The third stage will inventory the emission caused by usage of products. The fourth stage will implement the inventory of supply chain. The fifth stage will inventory the emission from the transportation of products and services.

• Office GHG Inventory
  

  The GHG inventory for our offices kicked off in April 2008. Thanks to the collective efforts by Acer’s global operating bases, the sum of Acer’s GHG emissions (CO2 e) was figured at 47,644 tons in 2007, and 45,959 tons in 2008, figuring at about 70% in completion level. The 2007 and 2008 GHG emissions in various scopes and percentages are shown as follows:
  
  
  
  Emissions in Scope 1 include fuel use and refrigerant emissions. Scope 2 concerns indirect emissions from power consumption. Scope 3 deals with emissions from business air travels. In the future, emissions by the suppliers, the product manufacturing process and service transportation will be included step-by-step. For the differences of worldwide office GHG emissions in 2007 and 2008, we will conduct internal verification programs for further analysis.

Data collection of 2009 Acer global operating GHG emissions is under going and expected to be done by the end of March 2010, also the data verification will be conducted in the second quarter. Based on the 2007 and 2008 GHG inventory experience, we believe that we will have better data quality for year 2009.

• Employee Commuting Survey

To enhance employee awareness of energy and climate change, and to encourage their involvement in energy saving and CO2 reduction, we conducted a staff online survey in Taiwan to analyze their method of commuting to work in Q4 2008. The total CO2 emission from our employee commuting in Taiwan was 2,308 tons. The survey showed that more than 50% commuted by motorcycle or car, 6% by walking or biking for zero emission, 35% by mass transit, and the rest by car pooling. Around 70% of total emissions came from car driving.

• Internal Verification Program for GHG Emissions Data

We started an internal auditing process for our worldwide operations this year to improve reliability and completeness of our GHG data. This task was implemented by external consultants and the Corporate Sustainability Office (CSO). Through this auditing process, we aim to establish a more reliable and complete GHG data gathering process, and build a response capacity for external auditing in the future.

• GHG Inventory for Supply Chain

Acer spun off its manufacturing operations to become a pure marketing and sales company at the end of year 2000. As a brand company, we can influence our suppliers and business partners to reduce GHG emissions together. Therefore, we are asking our suppliers to submit their GHG data and to include the emission from our product and service transportation as a part of our GHG inventory.

To collect our suppliers’ GHG emissions, Acer requests our main suppliers to respond the CDP SCLC (Carbon Disclosure Project – Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration) questionnaire. In the first CDP SCLC investigation of Acer’s suppliers in 2008, there were 42 respondents to the questionnaire. In 2009, this number increased to 58, demonstrating our proactive approach to gathering input from our suppliers.

According to the CDP Supply Chain Report 2010, 95% of Acer’s suppliers responded the questionnaire in 2009. There is still much room in improving the suppliers’ willingness and capability to report GHG emissions and climate change related activities.

• Product carbon disclosure

Acer and its suppliers established an ad hoc working group in Q3 2009 to find out Acer’s product carbon footprint and ways of reduction. Global warming issues are indeed the responsibility of the whole supply chain; therefore Acer will co-work with its suppliers to find solutions. Following the GHG Working Group meetings, we have defined the roadmap for carbon disclosure and the temperate methodology for carbon calculation and allocation. After setting the base year as 2008, Acer requested its suppliers to summit their carbon emissions in both the development and production phases. A preliminary figure of the carbon emission from ODMs allocated to Acer was about 87,000 tons CO2e in 2008. Further on, Acer will request its first and second tier suppliers to disclose their carbon emissions and to set up targets for carbon reduction for alleviating the global warming issues.

As there is currently not an international standard for calculating product carbon footprint, it is important to have inputs from companies during the standard developing stage. Acer decided to join the WRI/WBCSD GHG Protocol Product Standard Road Testing in January 2010. We will contribute the knowledge and experience related to supply chain and PC product GHG emission inventory during the six-month road testing period.

• GHG Inventory for Product Transportation and Service Logistics

The emission from our product transportation and service logistics is another important aspect for GHG inventory. In the second half of 2008, we conducted a preliminary study for identifying the appropriate inventory boundary to our product transportation and service logistics. Data collection and GHG emissions estimation for products transportation and services logistics began globally in September 2009. Till now, due to many difficulties of GHG emission inventory methodology and ways for data collection related to products transportation and service logistics, we only collected data for Q1 and Q2 2009 from some regions, which covers 30% of overall GHG emissions or 27,000 tons CO2e. Our goal is to cover more than 80% products transportation and service logistics inventory scope by engaging our colleagues and logistics service providers in 2010.

• GHG reduction
  

  Acer’s initiatives in cutting down GHGs:

  1. Improve energy efficiency of products: Acer became a member of the Climate Saver Computing Initiatives (CSCI) in 2008 and introduced LED displays into our products. We also took actions to improve products’ energy efficiency.
  2. GHG Inventory of Suppliers: in 2008, Acer joined the CDP SCLC and requested all suppliers to respond to the CDP questionnaire on GHG emissions. By December 31, 2008, Acer’s level-one suppliers had all responded to the questionnaire over GHG emissions inventory, risk management and opportunity identification. Starting in 2009, Acer will request for more suppliers’ participation in providing GHG emission information, as well as to put forth their carbon reduction strategies. Meanwhile, GHG emission data concerning product supply and maintenance transport will be inventoried in 2009.
  3. Energy efficiency improvement in buildings: continue to implement energy conservation programs at Acer’s offices and operations, drawing up power reduction initiatives and setting goals in virtue of the data obtained from GHG emissions inventory.
  4. Policy impacts: Acer partnered with 19 Taiwan-based firms in 2008 to launch the Taiwan Corporate Sustainability Forum (TCSF). As a founding member, Acer and other member firms part took in endorsing Taiwan’s GHG Reduction Act, offering strategy planning and wise counsel in hopes of fashioning a more business-friendly, effective GHG reduction policy framework.
  5. Carbon Neutral Project: in September 2008, Acer Japan purchased the carbon credit derived from the Clean Development Mechanism Project of Wind Power in India to offset the total annual carbon emissions from electricity consumption in 2007, thus achieving carbon-neutrality.

  We continuously monitor and improve the data gathering process of our GHG inventory among global operations. Hence, we have set energy efficiency benchmarks based on the electrical consumption per person in Taiwan. Our global operations can monitor their respective energy-efficiency results against these benchmarks at any time, and take the necessary actions.
  
  Following the above findings, further investigation led Acer to reduce the electrical consumption of air conditioning in its Taiwan headquarters. Acer will also take data from every regional office into account; plan and start a more comprehensive GHG reduction project. Together, the Acer Group worldwide is helping to mitigate on global warming.
  
  Acer started preliminary study on our GHG emissions from product transportation and services logistics in June 2008, and will collect related data to estimate our GHG emissions from our product transportation and service logistics in the second half of 2009. Based on these results, we will cooperate with our logistic service partners to help identify more opportunities to improve on energy efficiency for our products and logistics.

• Invest in Renewable Energy

In September 2008, Acer Japan purchased the carbon credit derived from the Clean Development Mechanism Project of Wind Power in India to offset the total annual carbon emissions from electricity consumption in 2007, thus achieving carbon-neutrality. This pilot and experimental practice is supported by the management at Acer and will be implemented continually.

We recognize that climate change is a global issue. As a brand-name sales and marketing company, Acer aims to identify ever more efficient and feasible ways to reduce carbon emissions. By investing in renewable energy projects or purchasing carbon credits derived from renewable energy to offset our carbon emissions will be worth considering and implementing in the future.

• Green Power

Apart from the company’s effort in reducing GHG emission, in 2008 Acer also began conducting feasibility assessments for reusable energy at our global operations. Currently, it is only possible for some operations to purchase green power. Since the majority of our operations are based in rented buildings, we need further assessment to find a cost-effective way to using green or renewable energy. In addition, Acer is taking concrete actions relating to specific goals set forth in the "Acer's Integrated Strategy on Energy and Climate Change."

• Plant-a-Tree for Every 3-liter PC Sold

With a view to reducing corporations’ and end-users’ carbon footprint, Acer Australia partook in the country’s “Trees for Life” and “Carbon-Neutral” tree-planting projects as part of a “Plant-a-Tree for Every 3-liter PC Sold” event. Starting in October 2007, for every Veriton 1000 and L460 3-liter computer sold, a tree was planted for the buying customer to slow global warming. From 2007 till the end of 2008, over 32,000 trees were planted.

• Engage with CDP

From 2007, Acer has received invitations from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). To summarize, the project was established by major investment bodies around the world to state GHG emissions and issues on environmental policies while disclosing the content of the CDP5 and CDP6 questionnaires. In 2009, Acer continues to cooperate with CDP’s efforts and replied to the CDP7 questionnaire in May.

In addition, Acer is well aware of the significance of topics such as climate changes, GHG and their vital relation to supply chains. This is why Acer participated in the Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration (SCLC) project initiated by the CDP: through the contents of the SCLC questionnaire, Acer encouraged all first tier suppliers to reply to issues such as GHG emissions and environmental policies and disclose relevant data openly or to the SCLC members by the end of October 2008. In 2008, we provided a list of 42 key suppliers to the CDP SCLC program and delivered this requirement during the supplier conference on July 9, 2008. Through our efforts, the response rate of Acer’s suppliers was more than 80% by the deadline for the SCLC08 survey, the highest rate compared with other CDP SCLC members, and all selected suppliers had responded to the CDP SCLC questionnaire by the end of 2008. In 2009, we expanded the list to 58 key suppliers, out of which 55 had responded to the SCLC 09 questionnaire.

With integrations through the SCLC project, more data from suppliers of various tiers will be available in the future to obtain more comprehensive GHG disclosure.

For detailed content relating to the CDP and SCLC project, please visit http://www.cdproject.net.

• Support CDP Events in Taiwan
  

Launched in 2000 by major institutional investors around the world, the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) since 2002 has invited more than 3,000 major corporations each year to disclose risks and opportunities regarding climate change, as well as their GHG emissions data. The CDP has become a significant driving force behind the disclosure of relevant data by corporations. Acer Inc. and Acer Foundation lead the way in pushing this issue to the forefront of the electronics industry and other industries in Taiwan. Starting 2008, Acer began to sponsor CDP launch events in Taiwan, so that Taiwan’s industries can acquire the latest carbon disclosure data from around the world. In April of 2009, we invited Taiwan companies and our suppliers to participate in the “Carbon Disclosure Forum 2009 and Carbon Inventory and Management Workshop.”

This forum provided a practical introduction to climate change and the CDP, as well as offer valuable advice, recommendations and resources on how to manage the process of carbon disclosure. The afternoon session was a Carbon Inventory and Management Workshop, an invaluable opportunity to get direct advice from leading Taiwanese corporations which have already engaged with the CDP process. More than 200 participants from 136 companies attended this forum, including 58 attendees from our 30 suppliers.

On October 23, 2009, together with ASrIA and BCSD-Taiwan, the results of CDP 2009 were announced to the public of Taiwan. Companies that conducted product carbon footprinting were also invited to share their experiences. We believe this event was beneficial to all attendants, and we will continuously take responsibility to lead our suppliers and the Taiwan ICT sector in facing the challenges of Energy and Climate Change.