SK Hynix, whose stock price is rising due to the success of AI semiconductors, has announced a roadmap for using recycled materials, showing that it is preparing for the future from an ESG perspective as well.

SK Hynix announced on the 6th that it has established a mid- to long-term plan to actively utilize recycled and renewable materials in product production, becoming the first global semiconductor company to do so.

Here, recycled materials refer to materials extracted, recovered, and reprocessed from waste generated during the manufacturing process or products discarded after use, while renewable materials refer to sustainable materials such as wood that are derived from nature and can be naturally regenerated over time, ultimately not being depleted.

SK Hynix stated, “In order to achieve Net Zero (carbon neutrality), a ‘circular economy’ system centered on resource recycling has become an important task for countries and companies around the world,” and “In line with this trend, we have decided to preemptively establish and implement a goal of gradually increasing the proportion of recycled materials used.”

Through this roadmap, SK Hynix aims to increase the percentage of recycled materials used in the products it produces to 25% by 2025 and 30% by 2030.The goal was set to increase the weight (by weight).

To this end, the company decided to convert some metal materials, such as copper, tin, and gold, which are essential materials used in semiconductor production, to recycled materials. Industry analysis shows that metal materials account for a large proportion of the weight of finished memory semiconductor products and are difficult to replace with other materials, so recycling them is most effective in terms of resource circulation.

The company is also making all-out efforts to practice resource circulation, such as replacing plastic packaging materials used to protect finished semiconductor products with recycled plastic.

SK Hynix also established an implementation system to achieve the roadmap goals.

The company has decided to strengthen the certification process and quality assessment for recycled materials that it directly purchases, and to review the quality assessment reports provided by its partners to decide whether to apply them. SK Hynix said that it plans to communicate with its partners to have them participate in verification and certification of the recycled material usage ratio by credible external organizations such as ISO 14021.

SK Hynix Vice President Song Jun-ho (in charge of Advanced Quality & Analysis) said, “As a company that strives for ESG management, we want to actively participate in building a global circular economy,” and “As we put the roadmap into practice, we will work together with all stakeholders in the semiconductor supply chain, including customers and partners, to achieve tangible results.”