Corporate
Data-Driven, Big-Picture Impact
10/29/2021
We at Samsung strive to deliver products and services that excite our customers, and do so in a responsible and ethical manner. How can important externalities, like our environmental and social impacts, that are not traditionally considered on the balance sheet be brought into all of our decision making processes?
One way we make sure to hit that mark is through the work of Mark Newton, Head of Corporate Sustainability at Samsung Electronics America. Mark is constantly considering our data-driven environmental and social impact, whether it’s meeting with policy influencers and issue advocates, discussing product features with our engineers, sales teams and customers, or inspiring kids who are competing in our annual Climate Superstars program to meet the challenges we will face in the future.
In addition to his work at Samsung, Mark is also a father and grandfather, a competitive Ultimate player and Disc golfer, and enjoys exploring the pristine beauty of the Texas hill country.
Here’s Mark’s “top 3” list for what you need to know about how we approach our environmental and social responsibility at Samsung:
1. Our team at Samsung relies on logic and data to achieve meaningful, measurable impact.
Where my team excels is with a very objective, measured way of problem solving. We at Samsung are passionate about what we do but use logic and data in order to come to our conclusions.
Now, having said that, we are also citizens of this planet and want this to be a bountiful place to live for generations to come. We want to contribute to the health of our planet and recognize that we can make better business decisions by considering externalities like our social and environmental impacts – and achieve bigger positive outcomes by incorporating data and logic in our decision making. Our company will only be successful in the long run by adopting a sustainable mindset that balances the resources we take and the impact we make with the value to society that we deliver. Therefore, our team’s philosophy is to enable Samsung to be an impact-driven, sustainable business.
For example, in the United States the US EPA has established ENERGY STAR as a certification standard to recognize products with exceptional energy efficiency. To date, 100% of our tablets, laptops, front load washers and dishwashers, 81% of refrigerators, 60% of top-load washers and 49% of our dryers are ENERGY STAR certified. These are some of the reasons that the US EPA awarded Samsung this year with their prestigious Corporate Commitment Award for energy efficiency leadership in both our products and our operations. Going forward, one of our biggest opportunities for positive impact is to continue to design our products to the highest standards with respect to energy efficiency.
To continue to speak to the data — on the recycling side, we operate the largest manufacturer recycling program in the United States. We recycle upwards of 100 million pounds of e-waste every year. That adds up to over a billion pounds of material responsibly recycled over the last 10 years1.
We have achieved these numbers by holding ourselves to the highest level of accountability. We use the e-Stewards standard, which restricts our recyclers from exporting any of that waste to developing countries for processing, even though it may be cheaper for them to do that.
We also have a very aggressive goal to incorporate 500,000 tons of recycled plastics into our products by 20302. And we are starting to recognize the immense opportunity to incorporate recycled metals into our products.
This to me is the most meaningful kind of environmentalism — lasting, data-driven, big-picture impact.
2. Samsung’s big picture environment and sustainability commitments are realized in three different areas: our products, operations, and by empowering action.
For our products, we work closely with our research and development teams to help them understand what customers here in the U.S. care about. We also speak directly with our sales and service support teams and share with them all the ways that our products are designed to be more efficient so that they can do what they do best and deliver that message to customers.
The sustainability value proposition is a given for us here at Samsung. We don’t have to make this up or spin a story. Simply put, a product design that does not consider its environmental or social impacts simply is not a well-designed product. Our actions speak for us and our products delight customers because they are innovative and well designed.
Operationally, waste is cost, simple as that, and waste has environmental impacts that we can’t afford.