Throughout the manufacturing process, from designing new processes to shipping finished products, safety is our top priority–safety for our employees, safety for our community, and safety for the environment. We strive to provide a safe and healthy workplace, to conserve natural resources, and to minimize the impact our manufacturing operations have on the environment.
An important part of Intel's corporate culture is that we're never satisfied with the status quo. We strive for excellence in our Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) programs, but we know we can always improve. To ensure that we achieve those improvements, we set challenging goals for ourselves every year, and we make ourselves publicly accountable by reporting on their status.
2006 New Mexico EHS report
Introduction
Intel New Mexico is committed to providing generation, air emissions, and wastewater these goals in this annual report. Status of 2006 goals
Goal: Continue to improve health and safety performance through our Incident and Injury Free culture and new Health and Productivity initiatives.
Status: Met goal. Intel continued to maintain its world class safety performance. Each NM site organization has evaluated its safety progress and implemented programs and initiatives to bring safety to the forefront of its daily operations.
Goal: Continue to improve contractor health and safety performance.
Status: Met Goal. Intel’s contractor safety program maintains world-class performance with injury rates approximately 10 times less than the industry average.
Goal: Recycle at least 75% of the chemical waste generated from the New Mexico site.
Status: Exceeded goal. A chemical waste recycling rate of 97% was achieved in 2006.
Goal: Recycle at least 70% of the solid waste generated from the New Mexico site.
Status: Exceeded goal. A solid waste recycling rate of 81% was reached in 2006 due to our dynamic recycling programs for metals, plastics, cardboard, paper, wood, and landscaping materials.
Goal: Continue water recycling and conservation to maintain fresh water use at or below historic usage levels.
Status: Met goal. Water consumption continues to remain below our historic usage levels.
Goal: Sustain ISO 14001 registration by maintaining excellent environmental management systems.
Status: Met goal. To maintain our registration, we conduct regular self-audits and periodic audits by a third-party registrar.
Goal: Continue commitment to EHS program excellence by recertifying in OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program.
Status: Met goal. In 2006 Intel New Mexico applied for and received the annual recertification of the VPP star.
Goal: Jointly identify, pursue, and communicate continuous improvements through the Community Environmental Working Group (CEWG).
Status: Met goal. Since the CEWG began meeting in August of 2004, it has made significant progress in identifying areas where Intel could make environmental improvements.
Health and Safety
Every year, Intel puts forth great effort in promoting a safe and healthy workplace, and 2006 was no exception. In February, Intel’s New Mexico site submitted its recertification application for the OSHA Voluntary Protection Program which is an elite recognition granted by OSHA to worksites with exemplary systems to manage worker safety and health. The recertification was approved.
Intel continues to maintain its world class safety performance. In 2006, we saw a decrease in our recordable injury and illness rate. Each NM site organization continues to evaluate its safety progress, implemented programs and initiatives to bring safety to the forefront of its daily operations.
Environmental Performance
Intel strives to meet or exceed all environmental compliance. We continue to conduct extensive stack testing as required by our minor source air permit, and our emissions remain well below our permit limits.
In 2006, Intel received an Industrial Wastewater Pretreatment Gold Award by the City of Albuquerque for complete and consistent compliance with our wastewater permit. Gold Pretreatment Awards are given to permit holders for 100% compliance with the reporting requirements and discharge limits of their permits. Gold Awards are also issued for going above and beyond the requirements of the permit. Since 1996, we have received ten Pretreatment Awards from the City of Albuquerque.
Water is one of many resources Intel is committed to conserving. In fact, our goal is to maintain water consumption below our historic usage levels despite significant growth of Intel’s site. In order to meet this goal, we continue to invest capital dollars in projects to improve water management. Intel has made improvements to its Industrial Reuse Water System, in which wastewater from the manufacturing process is treated and reused in other applications such as cooling towers. We also increased the recovery of our reverse osmosis system. Improvements such as these have helped Intel’s New Mexico site reuse over three million gallons of water per day, which has offset the need for a similar amount of fresh water.
Environmental Projects
In 2006, Intel submitted a technical permit revision to the New Mexico Environment Department, Air Quality Bureau. The purpose of the revision was to update site emission factors to calculate emissions from our air treatment units and boilers.
Continuously improving our facility is the way we do business. In 2006, we completed our $6.7 million improvement project to upgrade our emission control equipment and provide additional redundancy to existing systems. These improvements were influenced by feedback from local citizens, community groups, and regulatory agencies.
Community Relations
Intel NM is committed to being a responsible corporate citizen. The motivation for this comes from one of Intel’s long-standing values, which is to be an asset to our communities worldwide. In 2006, we collected 228,000 pounds of used computer equipment, cell phones and electronics at our fourth annual Electronic Waste Recycling Event co-sponsored by Intel, Hewlett-Packard and KOAT-TV.
We also completed our east slope property project which includes a 5,000-foot long paved path for our neighbors to use for walking, biking and equestrian recreation and a primitive 2300 walking pathway. The project was developed with neighbor input and preserves natural vegetation and animal habitat. Additionally, approximately 80,000 sf of bluegrass has been replaced across the site with xeriscaping, saving a significant amount of water consumption.
The Community Environmental Working Group (CEWG) continues to strive for continuous environmental improvements at Intel and improve open dialogue with the community. The nine members of the CEWG are made up of Intel EHS and Corporate Affairs, representatives from the New Mexico Citizens for Clear Air and Water, and concerned citizens. Air emissions have now been substantially reduced with upgrades to existing pollution control equipment. Methanol emissions are reduced by 48%. The number of hours the pollution controls are turned off for maintenance have been cut from over 240 hours each year to just over 100 hours. Please see the backside of this report for a short summary of 2006-2007.
