Seagate Transitions more operations to renewable energy and ramps circularity program returning nearly 1 mn drives to service

Seagate Technology Holdings announced that it is over 50 percent towards its 2030 moonshot goal of powering 100% of its global footprint with renewable energy and that it has extended the life of over one million hard disk drives (HDD) and solid-state drives (SSD) through its refurbishment program in fiscal year 2022 (July 2021 – June 2022).

The achievements were announced in conjunction with the publication of Seagate’s Sustainable Datasphere: FY2022 ESG Performance Report (formerly entitled “Global Citizenship Annual Report”). The 17^th annual report is a comprehensive look at Seagate’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) progress. The report describes Seagate’s yearly progress towards meeting the company’s goals to power its global footprint with 100% renewable energy by 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040. These goals were pledged last year in support of its commitment to a sustainable, inclusive, and ethical datasphere.

“At Seagate, we have always believed in data’s potential, which is why we are driven to help the world store and protect it,” said Dave Mosley, Seagate’s chief executive officer. “To be successful, however, we must lead the way in addressing the numerous environmental, social, and governance impacts and challenges our industry presents.”

Well on track towards achieving its pledge of powering its global footprint with 100% renewable energy by 2030, Seagate announced that four of its seven global manufacturing sites are now fully transitioned to using renewable energy through renewable energy purchasing contracts and solar system installations, accounting for more than half of the company’s total energy consumption.

Additionally, Seagate extended the life of 1.16 million HDDs and SSDs in FY2022. These drives were recovered through refurbishment and redeployment, preventing over 540 metric tons of e-waste¹ from going to the landfill.

Driving its impact on circularity, Seagate staked its environmental leadership in FY2022 by becoming a founding member of the Circular Drive Initiative (CDI), collaborating with global leaders in digital storage, sustainability, and blockchain focusing on reducing e-waste by enabling the secure reuse of storage hardware.

“Seagate leads with transparency and accountability, both by setting strong circularity goals across our global enterprise, and by working in coalition with our customers, industry peers and associations, supply chain partners, and governments to achieve these goals to reuse, refurbish, recover and recycle,” said KF Chong, senior vice president, operations and strategic planning at Seagate. “Given our scale, Seagate is a strong example of achieving our commitments to enable a more circular economy, reduce GHG emissions, preserve rare-earth minerals, reduce water and energy usage, and achieve financial savings.”

Additionally underpinning the company’s sustainability ambitions, Seagate launched a new consumer external HDD that is manufactured from 30% post-consumer recycled materials by weight and features 100% recyclable packaging. The new Ultra Touch HDD adds to the company’s line of external backup storage drives as well as its previously released premium brand LaCie Mobile Drive, which is also manufactured with post-consumer recycled materials.

Other highlights of the Report include:

Planet

• ~21,000 MWh of electricity saved through energy conservation and efficiency initiatives in FY2022, exceeding our initial conservation goal of 10,000 MWh
• 87% (~27,000 metric tons) of non-hazardous waste diverted from landfills in FY2022
• 5.8% reduction of absolute market-based scope 2 operational emissions in CY2021 vs. CY2020
• 82% of hazardous waste generated in FY2022 was recycled
• ~1,000,000 drives returned to service through refurbishment and redeployment in CY2021
• 1,352 MWh of on-site solar energy generated in FY2022
• 17.5% increase in water recycling in CY2021 from CY2020
• 17.1% decrease in water intensity (megaliter per EB) in CY2021 from CY2020

People, Prosperity, Governance

• 9.1% increase in inventions with 1+ female inventors
• 281,051 hours of learning and development completed in FY2022 by our employees
• 3,600 global members representing nine employee resource groups (ERGs) and over 27 local chapters across all ERGs in FY2022

• 131 different engagements and partnerships conducted in local communities
• 20% increase in (U.S.) supplier diversity spend from FY2021 to FY2022

• Strengthened Data Governance by implementing encryption-based data protection tools and automating key compliance processes