Policy and Actions
Environmental Responsibility
In terms of environmental management, in addition to implementing wastewater and waste-related environmental protection work in accordance with relevant laws and regulations, Advantech has formulated the "ESH management system manual" as the guiding principle for the operation of the management system, and regularly inspects and implements management. The wastewater meets the discharge standards and has been declared according to the regulations, and the industrial waste is also cleared and treated by qualified firms. The Company's environmental policy has been confirmed by the Board of Directors upon commitment and announced on the official website.
Highlighted Performance
Environmental Promotion Procedures and Actions
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Environment-related certification of Advantech’s main global operations and production factories
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Statistics on Environmental Violations at Advantech’s main global operations and production factories
Advantech's Environmental Resources Inputs and Outputs (Scopes for Factories in Taiwan, Kunshan (China), Japan, Korea, USA, and Europe)
Since last year, Advantech has expanded the collection of environmental data to include data of AJP, AKR, ANA, and AEU. Therefore, in 2023, we set corporate environmental management objectives for each RBU or production factory, as shown in the table below.
Energy and Resource Use and Waste Management
Water Use and Management
Advantech has implemented the ISO 14001 environmental management system to
assess water resources and wastewater treatment processes, identify water-saving
opportunities, and actively implement water-saving management factories to reduce
the water consumption and wastewater discharge. All factories and offices are located
in developed industrial areas or parks in the metro area, and water is supplied using tap
water without any groundwater or well water extraction. Figure 4.4.1 shows the total
water consumption of Advantech 's global main operating locations and production
factories in the past four years.
Except for the process water used in AKMC factory in China, the rest of the factories
uses water for domestic use or irrigation. However, we still regularly conducts water
efficiency management programs promotion and awareness training for employees, and
each factory also continues to implement water-reduction improvement plans. In Taiwan,
rainwater recycle for daily use, smart water saving, and smart air conditioning cooling
water and ice water system monitoring and control, etc., continue successfully. In terms
of process, AKMC, applies a water recycling project to save about 8,000 tons in 2023,
and a smart water efficiency management project implements automatic monitoring
and early warning of firefighting water, saving about 180 tons in 2023. In 2023, ANA’s
AASC factory implemented an irrigation system optimization and water-saving plan. It
intelligently adjusts the operation time of the irrigation system under the condition of
ensuring plant health to significantly reduce water consumption. In 2023, a total of 4,000
tons of water was saved, or about 50% of water consumption. An important milestone
in water conservation in the AASC factory area. In the future, each plant will continue to
plan more management factories to conserve water resources.
Except for AKMC that discharges industrial wastewater, Advantech's other factories do
not discharge industrial wastewater. The wastewater discharge volume of AKMC in the
past four years is shown in Figure 4.4.2. AKMC has a wastewater treatment system.
The acid-base neutralization and biological treatment are used to treat wastewater in
the factory. And the quality of the wastewater discharged is also monitored regularly to
ensure that all wastewater meets the standards before it can be discharged. In 2023, no
fines were imposed due to non-compliance with wastewater quality standards. In terms
of reducing wastewater discharge, in 2023, the Kunshan factory launched a process
wastewater recycle solution to recycle wastewater from the manufacturing process
to reduce wastewater discharge. The wastewater volume is reduced by about 4,000
tons compared to 2022. The table 4.4.3 summarizes the recent annual water usage of
Advantech's global main operating locations and production factories.
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Water consumption of Advantech’s main operating locations and production factories in recent years
*Note:
1. Water usage for 2020 and 2021 was not recorded in South Korea; water usage for 2020 was not recorded in the United States.
2. The water consumption data for Korea in 2022 was revised, so the total data was revised from 361,640 m3 to 365,330 m3 -
Discharge of industrial wastewater by Advantech’s main operating locations and production factories in recent years
*Note: Only AKMC discharges industrial wastewater among Advantech’s main operating locations and production factories.
Waste Management and Resource Recycling Management
Advantech‘s waste management strategy is to reduce the total amount of waste and turn waste into resources. We regularly promote and training employees on waste reduction management, and the production factory also holds regular meetings to track the waste reduction plans and performance of each unit. In addition to reducing waste
output through source management measures such as the reduction of raw materials, Advantech also monitors waste types and disposal methods to identify opportunities for improvement, and actively promote process improvement or waste resource utilization, such as replacing the existing tube disposal model through recycling of reusable packaging materials, in order to turn waste into useful resources, not only a true recycling and reduce the resource consumption and cost of waste disposal.
Advantech monitors waste disposal contractors every year. If contractors are in breach of contract or violate government regulations, we will take corresponding disposal, guidance, or replacement measures. In 2023, Advantech did not have any major breach of contract or violation of law by any of its waste contractors. The Company's waste
management model.
Regarding the final amount of business waste disposal at Advantech’s main operating
locations and production factories, as the weight of domestic waste is the estimated
quantity for clearance and transportation contracted for, and further information on the
weight of disposal and classification is not available, only the information on industrial
waste is disclosed
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Waste disposal methods of Advantech's main operating locations and production factories in 2023
*Note:
1. Statistics on the waste weight of ACL and AKMC are the data reported by each factory to the competent authority; statistics on waste of AJP, ANA and AEU are the data from outsourcing.
2. The waste weight in South Korea was not calculated in 2023. -
Business Waste Disposal Status among Advantech's Main Global Operations and Production Factories in Recent Years
*Note:
1. Statistics on the waste weight of ACL and AKMC are the data reported by each factory to the competent authority; statistics on waste of AJP, ANA and AEU are the data from outsourcing.
2. The waste weight in South Korea was not calculated from 2020 to 2023.
3. The waste weight for ANA and AEU were not calculated in 2020.
4. According to the waste disposal code reported by the AKMC to the competent authority, the data for the waste disposed of by AKMC in landfills from 2020 to 2022 should be disposed of for recycling and reuse, hence this is revised.
Air Pollutant Management
Advantech compiled air pollution data and information disclosure into three key points:
Advantech's production process does not produce ozone depleting substances (ODS), and therefore there are no ODS emissions.
Advantech's manufacturing processes in Taiwan and Japan are mainly assembly processes. Since these processes have low air pollution load, they do not emit nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, or volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
Advantech Kunshan Plant, China has liquid coating and powder coating processes, and the emitted VOCs are in compliance with local regulations.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) Emitted by Advantech’s Main Global Operations and Production Factories in Recent Years (Unit: mt)
The VOCs of Advantech's manufacturing factories in recent years are shown in Table 4.4.5. The significant increase in VOCs in 2021 is due to the increase in production capacity
To implement environmental reduction targets, Advantech Kunshan adopts effective control of VOCs, installs activated carbon control equipment to treat exhaust gas, and manages emissions through online real-time continuous monitoring and outsourced testing. There are improvement projects to reduce exhaust gas emissions, such as the transformation of process technology. In 2023, we will continue to expand the use of powder coating to liquid coating and improve the equipment processing efficiency of the production line to effectively reduce the generation of energy, exhaust gas, and VOCs. The amount of VOCs generated in 2023 is 47% lower than that in 2022.
Biodiversity and Conservation of Forests
Advantech started to focus on the topics of biodiversity and conservation of forests in 2022. Moreover, we joined the Taiwan Nature Positive Initiative (TNPI) initiated by the Taiwan Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD-Taiwan). We take more active actions on this issue to increase Advantech's corporate resilience. Moreover, Advantech's IoT expertise is being applied to empower nature conservation.
Sustainable Forests and Green Office
Advantech headquarters and major overseas business units have implemented the green office plan. Encourage and promote a paperless office, the use of double-sided office paper for printing, paper recycling, and the use of FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)-certified sustainable forest paper or other recycled paper materials for office and household paper.
In its forest conservation efforts, Advantech has sponsored the Taiwan Forestry Restoration Association's "Taichung Mt. DaDu Ecological Reforestation Project." The project aims to rehabilitate ecological tree islands and firebreaks in two designated areas, with plans to restore 52 species and 500 native seedlings in one area, and 125 species and 1,000 native seedlings in another. The estimated benefits are as follows:
Environmental education: The ecological green space has been increased by 0.81 hectares through the ecological afforestation plan to enhance the public's understanding and knowledge of forest restoration in Mt. DaDu.
Impact on forest fires prevention: The reference research of this restoration project indicates that in the sampling area with an arbor layer and guinea grass coverage rate of less than 30%, fires cannot be extinguished and cannot be prolonged. In the demonstration area of the plan, firebreaks are planned at the boundaries prone to fires to reduce the probability of flashovers and prolonged fires and to achieve fire protection.
Impact on carbon sequestration: The estimated total area designated for ecological afforestation in two locations is 0.81 hectares. As the seedlings grow strong, it is expected to sequester about 1.78 metric tons of carbon per year in the future.
AIoT for Biodiversity: Bird Sound Monitoring and AI Automatic Identification Solution
There is currently a US$700 billion shortfall in nature positive investments. Biodiversity Credit will play a key role in how to effectively invest capital where it is most needed and show its "nature positive" impacts on the income statement. The World Economic Forum (WEF) believes that the development of effective, trustworthy, and diverse measurement methods is the most urgent need for biodiversity credit, and scientific and automated AIoT monitors are one of the solutions. Bio-acoustic monitoring is up due to its low cost and low power consumption, making it more suitable for monitoring biological activities in a large area than imaging. Therefore, in addition to its own efforts in biodiversity management, Advantech cooperates with external industry, academia and experts to apply its core AIoT capabilities to develop soundscape monitoring and AI automatic identification solutions with the experimental forest indicator site of National Taiwan University as the first experimental base, expects to effectively improve the efficiency of ecological monitoring and the quality of biodiversity databases. In 2023, the prototype of this solution was completed and verified on the National Taiwan University farm. In 2024, the introduction of the National Taiwan University experimental forest will be completed