Sustainability Grab Bag…From Salmon Farming to Sunflowers
posted by Dave Stangis on November 11, 2007
So, what do the Tech Awards, Net Impact, socially responsible investors, Fab 32, Penryn, and sunflowers have in common? Not much other than the fact that you find them all in this short blog post and they are all part of our broader sustainability initiatives that have been occurring in just the past 10 days. Please bear with me while I try to connect these dots.
The Tech Awards gala occurred last Wednesday night. 
The winner of the Intel Environment Award was Fundacion Terram. Their Integrated Salmon-Seaweed Cultivation project attaches algae to a salmon-net pen to absorb nutrients from the salmon to clean the environment. This technology reduces the demand for natural seaweed using an environmentally and socially integrated approach.
Last weekend, we participated in the Net Impact Conference at Vanderbilt University. Suzanne Fallender from my group spoke about socially responsible manufacturing.
Continuing on that trend, the SRI in the Rockies conference took place right after the Net Impact Conference near Intel’s site in New Mexico. It’s a great conference that we try to participate in every year. In addition, when the conference is near an Intel site, we often try to host a group of investors for an overview and tour of one of our manufacturing sites. We had a great turnout this year and a lot of great questions.
Now to Fab 32, which I blogged about a week or so ago. The fabs design and production included a lot of green characteristics. There were few open questions about some of our environmental performance indicators included in that post. The best source for the data and some of our energy conservation measures can be found in the environment chapter of our corporate responsibility report.
There is also a great YouTube video about the construction of Fab 32 that EETime’s has provided a link to.
That leads me to Penryn and finally sunflowers. Today’s the day we launch the Penryn family of microprocessors. They been anticipated in the marketplace and even pre-announced because the 45nm architecture drives some great energy efficiencies and performance improvements. These completely lead-free microprocessors are being manufactured in state-of-the-art facilities in Oregon and Arizona.
And finally, you must be asking what do sunflowers have to do with any of this? Intel is using the sunflower, which has been used to remove lead from contaminated soil in a process known as phytoremediation, as a visual metaphor tied to the new, Penryn processors. 
The processors themselves are lead-free and based on the company’s 45nm transistor technology. This isn’t a branding or advertising push – it’s just a fun way to do the announcement. We are also trying to tie it to something we truly do believe in. In honor of American Education Week, Intel employees and others can visit www.intel.com/go/sunflowers to plant a virtual sunflower. And for every sunflower planted, Intel will donate a dollar to the Boys and Girls Club’s in honor of American Education Week.
Actually, my daughter loves sunflowers and considering today is her 10th birthday, I’m going to plant one for her. Next time, I promise to stick to one subject. However, there was so much going on that I thought some of you might be interested.
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tagged: 45nm, Fundacion Terram, Net Impact, Penryn, SRI in the Rockies, sustainability, Tech Awards
