This year, AMD reached an important milestone – its 50th anniversary. Across the world, AMDers celebrated one-half of a century of innovation. For me, the celebrations were highlighted by seeing AMD founder and former CEO Jerry Sanders join the stage with our current CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, at our quarterly all-company meeting. It was a special event witnessing their relaxed rapport and listening to their thoughts about delivering a new wave of high-performance technologies to transform our world.
At AMD, we are extremely focused on building products that push the boundaries of what’s possible. We do so with mindfulness about the people developing and using our technology, our present and future impact on the planet, and the purpose of high-performance semiconductors in helping solve important challenges spanning business, health care, education and more.
Over the last year, AMD has applied this mindset of “people, planet, purpose” to better understanding our role in supporting the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Specifically, we participated in the first quantifiable and scalable assessment of corporate performance to the SDGs and applied those measurements to our focus areas. I then traveled to India to join civil society leaders to learn and contribute our insights about the role of businesses and technology in helping advance the SDGs.
I look forward to continuing to share more about our journey, and the impact we envision over the next 50 years. Now, I’m pleased to announce our annual Corporate Citizenship update is available, highlighting progress toward our environmental goals and social initiatives.
Some highlights include:
People
- In 2018, we expanded our supply chain responsibility practices, enhancing our risk assessment efforts to better make certain all workers are treated with respect and that working conditions are safe.
- Giving back to our communities with our time, talent and resources also remains a priority. In 2018, no less than 2,838 AMDers volunteered a total of 15,324 hours in their local communities for a 49% increase in volunteer hours over the previous year. From exciting students about STEM to cleaning up parks and beaches and so much more, AMDers are making a positive impact. According to our annual employee survey results in 2018, 83% of AMDers are proud of AMD’s involvement in the community and social causes.
- Reinforcing our priorities, we’re honored to have been included in the 2019 Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index and named as a “Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality” on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index.
Planet
- To augment our benchmarking practices, AMD participated in an innovative pilot initiative to help develop the Trucost SDG Evaluation Tool aimed at bolstering corporate adoption of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The findings helped us to further identify and address corporate risks and opportunities related to the SDGs.
- We continue to make progress toward our 2020 climate goals, which have been approved by the Science Based Targets Initiative. In 2018, we sourced 27 million kilowatt hours of renewable energy, enough to power 3,300 U.S. homes for a year1.
- AMD’s 25x20 Energy Efficiency Initiative continues to inspire AMD engineers to design increasingly efficient processors for mobile devices. In 2018, we launched our fastest, most energy efficient mobile processor ever, advancing our mission to improve energy efficiency 25 times by 2020, from a 2014 baseline.
Purpose
To see more ways AMD technology is being used to help improve our world, visit our case studies page.
AMD’s ability to achieve both its business and corporate responsibility goals is the result of innovative, passionate, hard-working employees around the world. Together, we are looking forward to the next 50 years of delivering high-performance computing and graphics technologies and doing so in a way that makes the world a better place for the generations to come.
Susan Moore is AMD’s Corporate Vice President of Public Affairs and is a former chairwoman of Information Technology Industry Council (ITI). Susan was named a 2019 "Woman Worth Watching" by Profiles in Diversity Journal and she serves on the boards of ITI; as CEO alternate to the U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association; Austin Community Foundation; Austin Chamber of Commerce; and Lifeworks. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
Cautionary Statement
This blog contains forward-looking statements concerning Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) including, but not limited to, features, functionality, availability, timing, deployment and expectations of an EPYC™ and Radeon™ based exascale system, which are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are commonly identified by words such as "would," "may," "expects," "believes," "plans," "intends," "projects" and other terms with similar meaning. Investors are cautioned that the forward-looking statements in this blog are based on current beliefs, assumptions and expectations, speak only as of the date of this blog and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. Such statements are subject to certain known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond AMD's control, that could cause actual results and other future events to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied or projected by, the forward-looking information and statements. Investors are urged to review in detail the risks and uncertainties in AMD's Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including but not limited to AMD's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 30, 2019.
1. According to the EPA Green House Gasses Equivalencies Calculator, https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator.
