Nature Positive Role of the Technology Sector 2025

The tech sector has experienced strong growth in recent years and is poised to continue growing as demand for tech products, data centres and AI increases. The sector urgently needs to contribute to the nature-positive transition to reduce its impacts and dependencies on nature and to unlock new opportunities. This report focuses on three core sub-sectors of tech – semiconductors, data centres and hardware/ electronics – and much of their upstream and downstream value chain (see Figure 4). From AI to smartphones to the advanced microchips now found in everything from electric vehicles to home appliances, these sub-sectors are critical to modern life. Telecommunications infrastructure, while material, is not a key focus for this report, but has been reviewed by others including GSMA Intelligence.28 Semiconductor manufacturing The semiconductor industry provides critical components for chips used in electronic devices including computers, mobile phones, medical devices, cars and more. The industry’s thirst for energy and water is enormous and growing, so the sub-sector’s nature impact will continue to grow without mitigating action (see Figure 5).1.1 Tech sector overview Simplified value chain of the tech sector Semiconductor industry in numbersFIGURE 4 FIGURE 5Upstream inputs Tech operations Downstream outputs Electric power Generation (renewables, thermal/fossil fuel) Transmission & distributionWater Water resources Production Transmission, storage & distribution Raw materials Mining/extraction Processing Transmission, storage & distributionEnd-customersSemiconductor manufacturingData centres for cloud computingSaaS companies Hardware/electronicsE-waste and end-of-life treatment (e.g. recycling) – 6-8% annual growth expected to 2030 – 400+ operational facilities – 18 more plants under construction in 2025 – Average plant uses ~38 million litres of water per day – Global industry consumes >1 trillion litres of water per year– 60-70% of recent production located in Taiwan and South Korea – 1 company accounts for 6% of Taiwan’s total energy consumptionNote: SaaS = software-as-a-service. Sources: see endnote.29 Nature Positive: Role of the Technology Sector 14