Sustainable Product Design at Qualcomm
Protecting people and the planet
Continuing our efforts in sustainable supply chain management
We require all of our semiconductor manufacturing suppliers to adopt either the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) Code of Conduct or a similar code. By leveraging RBA tools, expertise and support to complement our supply chain management program, we can focus on conformance to high-level standards among all of our suppliers in relation to labor issues, health and safety, the environment, ethics and consolidated management systems
One hundred percent of our suppliers that represent more than 90 percent of our total product-related spend complete the RBA Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) on an annual basis. More than 80 percent of these suppliers have completed Validated Audit Process (VAP) audits within the past two years.
The RBA Code of Conduct, which serves as our Supplier Code of Conduct, and The Qualcomm Way: Code of Business Conduct, have been cornerstones of our commitment to RBA and responsible supply chain management for many years.
In 2018, we continued to make responsibility and sustainability part of our innovation process. Notably, we achieved Full Member status in the RBA. As a Full Member, we have deepened our commitment to the RBA Code of Conduct and continuous improvement of our supply chain sustainability. We completed a risk profile and audit plan for our supply chain, completed SAQs, accepted other member-initiated VAP audit reports for common suppliers and drove suppliers to close disqualifying priority findings. We published corporate responsibility data through our sustainability report and have been open and transparent about our progress.
Our participation in RBA enables us to leverage tools and receive support to engage our supply chain on sustainability issues. It also gives us the opportunity to work with our industry peers to continuously improve our industry’s supply chains and to responsibly manage impacts on people and the planet.
Environmental sustainability
We are committed to minimizing our environmental impact across our business, products and supply chain. We address the sustainability of our products through our Environmental Management System and various hazardous-substance elimination programs. We’re also working to be a positive force in protecting the environment by continually looking for ways to conserve water, minimize energy consumption, lower emissions and reduce waste.
As we expand our operations internationally, we continue to look for new opportunities to reduce our global emissions. For example, in fiscal year 2018 we entered into a 10-year solar power purchase agreement in Bangalore, India for approximately 19.2 gigawatt hours annually.
