279,000 tons of water form a day supplied to produce semiconductors. But then, do we let all this water just go to waste? Check out Samsung’s constant efforts to save, reuse and recycle precious water now!
Water management is an important part
of what we do at Samsung. It’s both the
start of workplace environmental
safety
and essential to creating new products.
Our strict water management was behind the miracle of Osan Stream, and we were also the first in the industry to earn Water Footprint certification. That’s why we are developing more extensive water management operations, especially as the scope and importance of corporate responsibility continues to expand.
Total Water Reuse Amount in 2023
We specialize in water reduction and managing how we use water. Together with water quality experts, we operate over 30 technical training programs for our employees.
This has resulted in our Hwaseong site in Korea reducing the average daily water use by 3,844 million tons in 2020, surpassing our 2% reduction target.
In 2023, Samsung Semiconductor operations at the Hwaseong site in South Korea achieved the highest AWS certification level. In 2024, the semiconductor operations at the Giheung·Hwaseong, Pyeongtaek sites in South Korea, as well as the Xi'an site in China, attained the same top-level AWS certification.
Dooguen Song
Corporate EVP, Head of EHS
Center (Global Manufacturing &
Infra Technology)
Samsung Electronics
| Name | Department | Responsibilities |
|---|---|---|
| Liz Lim | Environment conservation group |
Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) certification |
| Jongnam Lee (John) | ||
| Taewoan Koo | Water withdrawal, Discharge water quality, Governance | |
| Donghwan Kim | Aquatic ecosystem | |
| Jungwon Lee | Water withdrawal, Discharge water quality, Governance | |
| JongHun Kim | Pyeongtaek EHS Team Environment Group | Pyeongtaek Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) certification Lead |
| Kyoungjin Heo | Pyeongtaek water withdrawal, governance, aquatic ecosystem | |
| Youngdeok Jeong | Pyeongtaek water discharge quality | |
| Sungwon Heo |
Cheonan EHS Team Cheonan Disaster Prevention and Environment Group |
Cheonan/Onyang Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) certification Lead |
| Youngpil Kang | Cheonan water withdrawal, governance, aquatic ecosystem, water discharge quality | |
| Heesook Lee |
Onyang EHS Team Onyang Disaster Prevention and Environment Group |
Onyang water withdrawal, governance, aquatic ecosystem, water discharge quality |
| JuSeop Yeom | Corporate Sustainability Management Office(DS) | Stakeholders, Water quality |
Osan Stream is a body of water that runs 15 kilometers through Gyeonggi Province in Korea and carries water discharged by Samsung’s semiconductor manufacturing plant in Giheung. Previously, animals struggled to live near Osan Stream because of the odor caused by a lack of water.
To increase the amount of water in the stream, we partnered with environmental groups to release a maximum of 45,000 tons of purified water from the Giheung site each day every summer. This water was such high quality, we were able to create a clean environment for the otters to raise their families. But how did Giheung’s wastewater bring back the otters?
We have worked to reduce water use throughout the entire chip
manufacturing process, as well as purify
and
reuse water as much as possible. To increase the water reuse rate,
at each site we classify the water into
four categories: sewage, wastewater,
industrial water and ultra-pure water. Then each site reports how
they reused the water through
our Global Environment, Health & Safety
System (G-EHS system) every month.
In addition, with the installation of underground water pollution
prevention facilities at each site,
we prevent contamination and ensure
wastewater is safely handled through internal and external
treatment facilities.
Before water is
released into the stream, we monitor it to make sure it’s up to
our standards — which go beyond the required legal standard — then
measure the water quality in real time using the Tele-Monitoring
System (TMS) and send this data to the
government.
1) Based on global manufacturing site annual cumulative usage
The DS Division, to increase our manufacturing process water reuse rate, classify our water resources into sewage, wastewater, process water, and ultra-pure water and manage them by entering reuse rates per category per site in our environment management system on a monthly basis.
We prevent contamination with site-installed groundwater contamination prevention facilities and safely treat effluents via on and off-site treatment facilities. We apply legal and rigorous internal management standards when directly releasing effluents to stream via on-site treatment facilities.
(Unit: tons/year)
Year
Giheung
Hwaseong
Pyeongtaek
Cheonan
2020
109,014
402,974
293,842
4,923
2023
104,449
397,668
478,140
7,821
Our sites are continuously improving our manufacturing processes
and researching alternative chemicals
to use
in wastewater treatment. In particular, we are developing
non-hazardous treatments to replace
and reduce
the volume of hazardous chemical
substances further each year.
We closely oversee and analyze the discharge, transport and use of hazardous chemical substances. The Ministry of Environment (MoE) also actively participates in chemical emissions surveys and investigations. Through their results, we can analyze any fluctuations in hazardous chemical use.
We are also working on minimizing use by optimizing the efficiency of the process.
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