Seagate deepens sustainable datasphere commitments

The environmental sustainability goals were announced in conjunction with the release of the company’s 16^th Global Citizenship Annual Report, gearing towards supporting the company’s commitment to a sustainable datasphere and protecting the environment.

“Seagate’s value of Integrity compels us to take meaningful and measurable action on climate change,” said Joan Motsinger, senior vice president for business sustainability and transformation at Seagate.

“Today, we publicly share our commitments, and we are well on our way to achieving these milestones both within our operations, with electricity sources, and with our suppliers and customers.”

Balan Shanmuganathan, senior director of sustainability at Seagate said, “Seagate, along with industry peers and global stakeholders, must address the harm caused by materials depletion, power and water overuse, and waste. That is why we are boldly and publicly committing to specific and aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to achieve carbon neutrality.”

Seagate will reach its environmental sustainability goals through commitments spanning Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as defined by The Greenhouse Gas Protocol and Reporting Standard.

The company’s report offers a comprehensive look at the company’s yearly progress towards meeting emission reduction targets, product stewardship, talent enablement, diversity goals, labour standards, fair trade, supply chain, and more.

In terms of environmental protection, Seagate saved approximately 23,000MWh amounting to 14,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent of electricity in 2021 through energy conservation and efficiency initiatives, exceeding its conservation goal of 10,000MWh for the year.

The company continued product circularity partnerships with Dell and Google to recycle components such as voice coil magnet assemblies and materials that use rare earth elements.

As for hazardous waste, Seagate has decreased the intensity of hazardous waste generated per exabyte by 17 per cent in 2021, mostly through recycling, diverting 84 per cent of waste away from landfills. Meanwhile, the volume of water recycling increased by more than 9 per cent on-year.

In the social aspect, Seagate is taking steps to ensure that women have an equitable voice in leadership. Compared to the previous year, there was a 4 per cent increase in women in the company's executive positions and a 2.9 per cent increase in women in director positions.

As for governance, Seagate has established the Global Compliance and Ethics Council (GCEC) to align Seagate's business functions with its corporate compliance and ethics strategy. The GCEC determined that there were no significant risks of corruption or non-compliance in 2021 through ethics risk assessments at the company's seven manufacturing sites.

As a global technology pioneer for more than 40 years, Seagate has shipped over three billion terabytes of data capacity, helping to maximise humanity’s potential by innovating world-class, precision-engineered mass-data storage and management solutions with a focus on sustainable partnerships.