On Jan. 5, Samsung Electronics unveiled its vision for the future, “Together for tomorrow,” during a pre-show keynote event at CES 2022.
Keynote speaker Han Jong-Hee (JH), Vice Chairman, CEO and Head of DX (Device eXperience) Division at Samsung, highlighted the company’s efforts to usher in a new age of togetherness, with customizable experiences that reflect consumers’ evolving lifestyles, and innovations that mark progress for both society and the planet.
The company’s “Together for tomorrow” vision is one that empowers everyone to create positive change and drives collaborations that address some of the planet's most pressing challenges. The keynote illustrated how Samsung plans to make its vision a reality by introducing a range of sustainability initiatives, purposeful partnerships, and customizable and connected technologies.
“I’m excited for you to be a part of our vision to see how innovation can create positive change, [and] to join us and work together for tomorrow,” said Han. ”These developments will make sustainability part of your product experience, enabling you to live a more sustainable life.”
Building a Sustainable Future
At its core, Samsung’s vision for the future is built on what the company calls “everyday sustainability.” It is a concept that inspires Samsung to put sustainability at the heart of everything it does.
The company has been realizing its vision by adopting new, low-impact product manufacturing practices, footprint-reducing packaging and a more sustainable customer experience, and by responsibly disposing of products at the end of their lifecycles.
Samsung’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions throughout the production cycle have also earned recognition from the Carbon Trust, the world’s leading authority on carbon footprint. Last year, the company’s Carbon Trust-certified memory chips helped reduce carbon emissions by nearly 700,000 tons.
Samsung’s efforts in this area extend well beyond semiconductors and include expanding the use of recycled materials. To introduce everyday sustainability to more products, Samsung’s Visual Display Business plans to use 30 times more recycled plastics than it did in 2021.
The company also revealed plans to expand its use of recycled materials to include all mobile products and home appliances over the next three years.
In 2021, all of Samsung’s TV boxes included recycled materials. For this year, the company revealed that it will be expanding the use of recycled materials to include the boxes’ interior packaging as well.
The expansion of the program, which transforms cardboard boxes into cat houses, side tables, and other useful furniture items, will include packaging for home appliances such as vacuum cleaners, microwave ovens, air purifiers and more.
Samsung is also building sustainability into the ways that customers experience its products. Such experiences will be integral to empowering people to reduce their carbon footprint and make positive changes together for a better tomorrow.
As an example, the company introduced notable enhancements to its first-of-its-kind SolarCell Remote, which eliminates battery waste with a built-in solar panel that can be charged during both day and night.
By 2025, Samsung plans to make all of its TVs and phone chargers operate on near zero standby power, so that the products will consume almost no energy when not being used.
E-waste is another big challenge for the electronics industry, which is why Samsung has collected more than five million tons of e-waste since 2009.
For mobile products, last year, Samsung launched Galaxy for the Planet, a sustainability platform that was created to bring about tangible climate action and minimize devices’ environmental footprints throughout their lifecycles.
“These are important steps,” said Han, “but we cannot achieve our goals alone. We believe open innovation and collaboration are keys to fighting climate change and protecting our environment.” With this in mind, Samsung announced that its eco-conscious technologies like the SolarCell Remote will be made open source, so that others can utilize them for their new devices too.
