Analysis

Tripple Bottom Line at Samsung-

The above table comes to show what are the improvements and achievements reached by Samsung and their impact on their people, planet, and profit aspects. A sustainable strategy is one of the most important strategies in Samsung. The TBL helped Samsung made 4.2 KRW trillion profit from 2014 to 2016, and it developed 86% eco-friendly products, saved energy, recycled products, and reduce the frequency and injury rate.
There are three parts of TBL, including people, profit, and planet, standing for social performance, economic performance and environmental performance, respectively. Samsung did good and contributed to every part. For planet, Samsung’s development of eco-friendly products increased from 58% in 2014 to 86% in 2016. The use of renewable energy increased from 31.6 GWh in 2014 to 181.77 GWh in 2016. The recycling of products increased from 59,044 Ton to 93,852 Ton. Samsung also focusses on controlling to release greenhouse gases through three ways: direct GHG emissions, indirect emission from electricity, steam, and all other indirect emissions from logistics, suppliers, use of products. In 2016, Samsung already used 62% of wind power and 14% hydropower as new energies. For people, the total employees were 319,208 in 2014, 325,677 in 2015, and 308,745 in 2016. The ratio of female employees increased from 42% in 2014 to 46% in 2015, and dropped to 44% in 2016, but the ratio was always above 40%, which meets the fifth SDG, the gender equality, and give women more work opportunities. The injury rate dropped from 0.054 to 0.044 in two years. For profit, Samsung made 25 KRW trillion (23 billion USD) in 2014 and made 29.2 KRW (27 billion USD) trillion in 2016. Samsung also used lots of profits to invest in education and medical and health care.

Samsung Stage of Sustainability-

There are five stages of sustainability, every business go through this stages in order to

become fully sustainable. Viewing Compliance as Opportunity , Making Value Chains

Sustainable , Designing Sustainable Products and Services ,  developing new business models and creating next practice platform.

After analyzing the sustainability strategy of Samsung we came up with the conclusion that the  company is now in the 3 stage which is designing sustainable products and services. According to the article " why sustainability is the new key to driver" the stage 3  is defined as the following; Sustainable Products and Services the development of sustainable offer-ings or redesign existing ones to become eco-friendly.

Samsung now manages the greenhouse gas  reduction at the product use stage and during the manufacturing process as key performance indicators. One of the innovation opportunities for Samsung is the development of compact and eco-friendly packaging.  The company have are source recycling systems, Samsung uses a reverse logistics to create a unique package system to achieve sustainable growth. Their reuse cycle consists in assembly, dispatch, transportation, unboxing and the recovery of the package. For example, the company uses the Expanded Polypropylene (EPP) which is a highly versatile closed-cell bead foam that provides a unique range of properties, including outstanding energy absorption, multiple impact resistance, thermal insulation, buoyancy, water and chemical resistance, exceptionally high strength to weight ratio and 100% recyclability. The company uses this material to ship their products such as the refrigerator with the final goal of recycling the packing material, which they could use up to 40 times.

Samsung management know-how to scale both supplies of green materials and the manufacture of products.  In order to manufacture eco-friendly products Samsung uses Polyketide plastic which is a high molecular new substance made using carbon monoxide, this decreases resource consumption and reduces environmental pollution compared to existing oil-based plastic. Also,  the company has developed various energy-saving technologies, low-Power SoC design LED TVs, software for the power saving mode on PCs and many others eco-Friendly and innovative products.

An example of Samsung creating sustainable products is the Eco-Product Ratio. Samsung Electronics manages eco-product development ratio as their performance indicator. It evaluates the environment aspects of a product is evaluated by product developers according to eco-design process. The result is classified into three levels: Premium Eco, Good Eco, and Eco.

The company strives to have 90 percent of new development projects receive the Good Eco-Product stamp of approval or higher by 2020. (Samsung)

Samsung’s Mind Map-

The Mind Map comes to represent the achievements that Samsung has done to achieve sustainable development strategies. Through their diverse actions by campaigns, energy-efficient products, eco-design, eco-management, chemical management, sustainable materials, and responsible recycling comes to demonstrate their efforts to increase their performances and contributed.

Samsung has established sustainability management system. The core value is consisting of two aspects: one is people, excellence, change, integrity and co-prosperity, the other is economic value and social values. In social value, Samsung aims to achieve a society that has no poverty, no hunger, good health, quality education, gender equality, cleaner water and sanitation, renewable energy, good jobs and economic growth, innovation and infrastructure, sustainable cities and communities, climate action, peace and justice. Samsung cares about social impacts so that they manage the impact on stakeholders. Under the sustainability management system, they also have value chain that is from supply chain to manufacturing to products to customers to innovation. To bring theories to practice, Samsung has taken many actions to achieve their sustainable development goals. These actions are shown below.

1.     Eco-Management:

·         Develop Green Management Scheme

·         Develop Eco-Management Framework

2.     Eco-Design

·         Develop Eco-Design Process and Eco-Rating System

·         LCA Practice of Mobile

3.     Energy Efficient Products

·         Improve product energy consumption

·         Develop major energy reduction technologies

4.     Chemical Management

·         Manage of hazardous substances in products

·         Get Eco-Partner Certification

5.     Sustainable Materials

·         Using Polyketone Plastic

·         Using Recycled Plastic

6.     Responsible Recycling

·         Develop Global Recycling and Take-back Program

·         Develop Recycling Program

7.     Establish “PlanetFirst Campaign”

Systems Thinking at Samsung-

System thinking is when the company considers the whole picture of their impacts and their actions in the environment. In Samsung the environment is very aspect of what identifies Samsung. Implementing their Eco management the get to impact all of the aspect of what they produce and use. Through their annual report Samsung comes to show their effort to make sure that they are taking every action into having a good impact in the environment. From 2009 to 2020 they have may great effort into reducing the use of greenhouse in there production phase by 250 millions tons. In addition, having implementing the Eco-label into 90% of their newly develop products. They also make great effort to collected the waste they have produce as their product resulting in collecting globally 3.8 million tons. Moreover, reducing the water usage is a very important part of how they come to demonstrate their effort in impacting all aspect of their business and come to integrate system thinking.(Samsung)

Crowdsourcing at Samsung-

Crowdsourcing is asking the opinion of third parties such as the community based on a particular topic or the development of a specific task. It uses the collaboration of many people to solve a problem or to know the opinion based on something. It can be through a contest or a simple application.

According to Dave Hanes, Samsung’s semiconductor division was taking an interesting approach to figuring out what to do with the flexible display technology that was coming to market. The company was crowdsourcing ideas through a contest.The Flexible Future Business Plan Contest was offering up a $10,000 first prize, as well as smaller second and third place cash prizes, to a person or company that comes up with the best ideas on how to apply thin, bendy or even foldable displays to the marketplace. To enter the contest, a business plan in place and in their hands was needed by early October, with everything from concept through market analysis to go to market plans.

The statement published by Samsung was as follows;

“How would you change people’s lives with Samsung Flexible Display technology? We are calling on the most innovative designers, hardware engineers and entrepreneurs to develop new product ideas that put our revolutionary Flexible Display technology to use in ways that will define the future.” (Samsung)

For Samsung, crowdsourcing also generated new ideas. In addition to capturing feedback on existing offers, crowdsourcing has helped the world’s leading brands drive product innovation.

Life Cycle Assessment and Sustainable Product Design on Samsung Products -

Samsung has done a life cycle assessment for not only one of their products, but 3 of their more famous products such as; The Galaxy Tab E, Galaxy note5, and Galaxy s6 . Also the company  did a LCA to the Galaxy S8 travel adaptor. According to Samsung, Samsung Galaxy series, cutting edge smart devices was analyzed based on life cycle assessment(LCA) methodology according to international standard ISO 14040 series in order to determine potential environmental impact across the whole life cycle including pre-manufacturing, product manufacturing, distribution, product use and disposal phase. Product bill of material (BOM), parts and components logistics, energy consumption in product use and end-of-life scenario data were utilized to model the environmental impact using a dedicated LCA S/W and its database. Potential environment impact was quantified in total 12 environmental impact categories including Global warming, Abiotic depletion, Acidification, Eutrophication, Ozone layer depletion etc. (Samsung)

Samsung Electronics has made endeavor for development and application of eco-material. In 2016, beyond of research on eco-material itself, Samsung carried out a research on measuring potential environmental benefit from use of eco-material. LCA(Life cycle assessment) methodology was used to quantifying environment impact of travel adaptor during its whole life cycle including raw material acquisition, manufacturing, use and end of life. The study shows that use of recycled polycarbonate contribute to reduce greenhouse gas by 97% compared to virgin polycarbonate. It is estimated Galaxy S8 travel adaptor which is made of 20% recycled PC reduce 500 tons of greenhouse gas and is expected to be same effect as planting 13,000 pine trees. Samsung Electronics have a plan to expand this study to bio based plastic and natural mineral based eco-materials. We perform Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) to identify the potential environmental impact of our products throughout their entire life cycle. In 2016, we analyzed our mobile phones and tablets on 12 environmental impact factors in each phase of the product life cycle, and have been using the outcomes in developing technology to minimize their GHG emissions in the manufacturing phase. The following are the LCA results of the Tab S2 in the materials production, product assembly, distribution, use and disposal phases, and we are determined to use these data to consistently reduce the environmental footprint of our products.  12 environmental impacts - Global warming, Acidification, Eutrophication, Ozone layer depletion, Formation of photochemical oxidants, Human toxicity, Freshwater toxicity, Seawater toxicity, Soil toxicity, Primary energy consumption, Water use, and Waste generation. (Samsung)

Samsung management know- how to scale both supplies of green materials and the manufacture of products.  In order to manufacture eco-friendly products Samsung uses Polyketide plastic which is a high molecular new substance made using carbon monoxide, this decreases resource consumption and reduces environmental pollution compared to existing oil-based plastic. Also,  the company has developed various energy-saving technologies, low-power SoC design LED TVs, software for the power saving mode on PCs and many others eco-friendly and innovative products.

An example of Samsung creating sustainable products is the Eco-Product Ratio .  Samsung Electronics manages eco-product development ratio as their performance indicator. It evaluates the environment aspects of a product is evaluated by product developers according to eco-design process. The result is classified into three levels: Premium Eco, Good Eco, and Eco. The company strives to have 90 percent of new development projects receive the Good Eco-Product stamp of approval or higher by 2020. (Samsung)

Circular Economy at Samsung-

Samsung does follow the principles of circular economy.  A circular economy is a regenerative system in which resource input and waste, emission, and energy leakage are minimized by slowing, closing, and narrowing energy and material loops. This can be achieved through long-lasting design, maintenance, repair, reuse, remanufacturing, refurbishing, and closed recycling loops. Samsung creates not only mobile phones, but also TVs and refrigerators, which are long lasting products. Samsung has developed various energy-saving technologies, low-power SoC design LED TVs, software for the power saving mode on PCs using a chipset motion mode control, and reduction of power consumption for the sleep mode on printers and multifunctional devices. In fact, we had our leading energy-saving technologies officially recognized when we acquired Green Technology certification in Korea for products with high energy efficiency. (Samsung) They do display in their website under the tap of “Supply Chain” that they have over 2,500 suppliers around the world and that they all must meet the “Samsung Supplier Code of Conduct” by going by the local regulation or international ones and making sure they meet the environmental, human rights , and financial standards. (Samsung) Their partner must meet certain environmental and safety inspections to make sure they are equipped to handle diverse situations.

Green Manufacture and Sustainable Supply Chain at Samsung-

Samsung now manages the greenhouse gas reduction at the product use stage and during the manufacturing process as key performance indicators. One of the innovation opportunities for Samsung is the development of compact and eco-friendly packaging. The company have a resource recycling systems, Samsung uses a reverse logistics to create a unique package system to achieve sustainable growth. Their reuse cycle consists in assembly, dispatch, transportation, unboxing and the recovery of the package. For example, the company uses the Expanded Polypropylene (EPP) which is a highly versatile closed-cell bead foam that provides a unique range of properties, including outstanding energy absorption, multiple impact resistance, thermal insulation, buoyancy, water and chemical resistance, exceptionally high strength to weight ratio and 100% recyclability. The company uses this material to ship their products such as the refrigerator with the final goal of recycling the packing material, which they could use up to 40 times.

Samsung in their website they display their supply chain management strategy, through diver regulations that their suppliers have to meet they get to make sure they are being sustainable. Samsung stated in their website how they only work with suppliers that are  “Eco Partner-certified” in that way as one they can all manage the impact their materials, components, and manufacturing have on their process. In the area of ethical labor policies, to be a supplier for Samsung as they have stated in their website they must meet three major policies as; ban on child labor, guarantee minimum wage, and ban on inhuman treatment. (Samsung, 2018) They also develop a program called “Partner Collaboration Programs” create funds, employee capacity-building, and innovation initiatives by not only helping their suppliers but business allover to help them improve their manufacturing capacity.