Products in use

Design for energy efficiency

In 2005, our focus on product responsibility, in particular energy-saving characteristics, reflected the intention to respond in a more formalized way to growing market demand for energy-saving products. Design for low energy consumption has been part of our approach to environmental management for many years, but it was felt that we need to have better visibility of the energy-saving products we produce. Energy-saving products fall into the domain of 'eco-efficiency', where there are both financial and environmental benefits to innovation. The decision was taken to track and measure our energy-saving products more closely.

EN17; STPR1

A preliminary evaluation carried out on products shipped in 2005 identified energy-saving products from our different product groups. These represent 4.3% of total ST revenues. The estimated energy saving resulting from these products is 1,220 GWh, which is the equivalent of half of ST's own energy consumption and represents a saving of approximately 600 kTons of CO2.

In 2006, we will extend our internal information network in order to gather additional information and identify more existing products with energy-saving characteristics. We will also establish a monitoring system for new products and ensure a reliable annual consolidation of data.

Sales to the military

Our ST policy is not to sell products that we know will be included in weapons. We have no direct sales of this kind. We have direct sales to the civilian aerospace sector in Europe and we sell our products to distributors, with no control over subsequent sales. These products are standard, employed in hundreds of different applications and sectors, such as voltage regulators, diodes, and transistors that can be purchased from any distributors and employed in thousands of products. It is unlikely any of our standard products are used by military clients for use in weapons, as these usually require very specific, customized applications.