Sustainable Supply Chain Upgrading Forum Sustainable - Water Resources Management
Event date: 2023/07/14
According to the "Valuing water for the Economy" report (2021) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 69% of global freshwater resources are used for agriculture, and 19% are used for industry and energy. Specifically, pollution caused by climate change, excessive human usage, and the degradation of fresh water systems all caused an increase in corporate operating costs. In view of this, Winbond Electronics held the "Sustainable Supply Chain Upgrading+" forum on July 14 as a collectively discussion, with the theme of sustainable water resources. We invite our first-tier suppliers, a total of 199 companies including raw materials, back-end packaging and testing, machinery and equipment, spare parts, maintenance, factory engineering, etc. participated in this forum online.
Winbond Electronics believes that companies should regard water as part of "infrastructure" rather than "consumable resources." At the forum held on July 14, Liu Lizhen, product manager of the British Standards Institution (BSI), he discussed the theme of "Sustainable Water Resources Management" and proposed that 3R management elements (Reduce, Replace, Reuse) should take into account. The content of this section included international water resources development and initiatives, the global water shortage crisis caused by climate change, the current situation of domestic water resources and Laws, regulations, and ISO related to water management. He taught Winbond’s suppliers that overall water management should implement by correct sustainable concepts, daily water footprint recording, water usage and wastewater recycling.
Next, we invited Li Yaling, assistant manager of safety and environment office from Chipmos, sharing how does Chipmos identify the opportunities and risks in water usage based on its industrial positioning and climate change step-by-step. Chipmos shared that in response of climate change, they conduct a series of analysis of water risk and disclose their approaches in the TCFD report. In the end of this section, Chipmos also encouraged Winbond’s suppliers to accept international evaluations by combining the company's existing water resources management mechanisms and measures, such as taking the initiative to fill in the CDP water safety management questionnaire and understand themselves through the evaluation by international organizations. This will help not only continuous improvement but also enable early response and adjustment in accordance with climate change. The final section was "Improving Tap Water Saving Rate", which won the Silver Tower Award Taiwan Continuous Improvement Competition in 2022 and cooperated by the Wastewater Section of Winbond Electronics. Winbond not only shared practical practices in water conservation and worked with suppliers to improve water-saving technologies, but also encouraged suppliers to think about the benefits of carbon reduction through water conservation.
Among the United Nations' 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the sixth goal is to "ensure that all people have access to water, sanitation and their sustainable management." Water resources management is not only the power for enterprises to cope with climate change, but also one of the sustainable strategies for enterprises to vigorously decarbonize. In terms of water resources management, Winbond Electronics has released financial reports related to climate change since 2023, and has indeed identified the risks and opportunities of water resources management. Moreover, we raised the water resources management strategy to the sustainable development committee. Looking forward to the future, Winbond will continue to discuss the cooperation mechanism for water resources management with our suppliers, and strive to enhance the resilience and competitiveness of the supply chain persistently.
