Intel allocated 34% of its $1.25 billion green bond toward projects that support the company's sustainability ambitions of lowering its environmental impact and reaching net-zero emissions by 2040. And as a leading semiconductor provider with a slew of new sites under construction, Intel can use all the help it can get.

Green bonds are fixed-income instruments backed by the issuing company’s balance sheet that carry the same credit rating as the issuer’s other debts. These bonds are then used to finance projects with explicit environmental initiative such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions or renewable energy development.

Intel's green financing push is part of a growing global market, with green bond issuance having reached record levels in the first six months of 2023. The $425 million Intel allocated so far is divided between eligible pollution prevention, water stewardship, energy efficiency, renewable energy and circular waste management projects.

Chief Sustainability Officer Todd Brady told SDxCentral these efforts are significant for an enterprise like Intel because "we are specifically allocating money to these various different projects," then quantifying that information and reporting it publicly. "This is another step in us being able to share where some of the money is going that we're spending on sustainability," he said.

"We've tried to be as transparent as possible about our performance, both good and bad," he added.

According to Intel's green bond impact report, projects funded by the green bond in 2021 and 2022 contributed to reducing Intel's GHG emissions by 5.3 million metric tons of emissions, avoiding the use of 4.5 billion gallons of water, and diverting 56,000 tons of waste from landfills.

A major circular waste management project funded by Intel's green bond is the expansion of systems that collect copper waste. Intel uses copper to manufacture the circuits on semiconductor chips, and copper waste is discharged in factory wastewater. This project enables the company to capture copper from its wastewater stream and resell it to industrial markets, which leaves "a positive sustainability impact [and] financial impact," Brady said.

Intel directed $21 million to waste management, $51 million of the total funds to energy efficiency and $39 million to renewable energy. The company currently claims to operate on 93% renewable energy with a goal to reach 95% by the end of this year.

"We've continued to make investments in that area all around the world," he said, citing the company's renewable energy procurement and energy efficiency improvements. For example, motion-activated LED lighting and daylight harvesting – "if the sun's coming in through the window and naturally lighting the area, you can dial back the lights" – are focus areas for Intel.

Brady also highlighted smart artificial intelligence (AI) applications Intel uses to control its chilled water systems, which are one of the biggest users of energy in its factories. As a result of using AI for optimization, Intel claims to see a 20-30% reduction in chilled water systems energy use.

"Instead of each of those industrial chillers operated independently, we tied them all together and integrated a bunch of different sensors," he explained. "We have an AI algorithm that can look at how they're being used independently and then aggregate those together to optimize that system."

Another $99 million of the green bond funds were allocated toward upgrades of Intel's water reclamation facilities in Israel, Oregon, and Arizona. The water recycling facility in Arizona, Brady said, can reclaim and recycle up to 9 million of gallons of water each day.

To address harmful pollutants like GHG emissions, Intel directed $215 million toward emissions reduction. "Whenever we build a new factory – and we're building a lot of them right now – we install what we call a point-of-use abatement," Brady said. "As we are using different GHGs in the manufacturing of semiconductors, we then on the backend implement these abatement devices to reduce those emissions from our factory."