Environmental Stewardship

Consideration for the environment is nothing new for Altera. As our Green Initiatives Timeline illustrates, environmental thinking became part of our corporate culture early-on and we continue to make progress in this area. Our long-standing Environmental, Health and Safety Policy seeks to comply with all applicable standards and regulations.

We are a fabless company and work closely with our manufacturing partners to ensure they meet global environmental standards and guidelines. All of our manufacturing partners are ISO 14001 certified and our largest sites have established or are in the process of establishing an environmental management system that is appropriate in scope and scale to their operations. Partner certificates can be found at Altera's My Support.
We recognize that one of our greatest impacts on the environment is our use of electricity. We have made great strides in reducing our consumption through several energy efficiency projects:

• 2008
• Installed a cold aisle containment system in our software data center, saving approximately 228 MWh annually, a 35% reduction in cooling costs (San Jose, California).
• Turned off air conditioner in the canteen on the weekends, saving 43 MWh annually (Penang, Malaysia).
• 2009
• Consolidated VMware servers in our data centers, saving 346 MWh annually (San Jose, California).
• Replaced metal halide fixtures with fluorescent fixture in our parking garage, saving approximately 180 MWh annually (San Jose, California).
• Installed a 375-kVa E-Clean Chiller unit, reducing electrical operating expenses by more than 10% and saving 355 MWh annually (Penang, Malaysia).
• Removed one fluorescent light tube from each 3-light fixture, saving 443MWh annually (Penang, Malaysia).
• 2010
• Increased set-point temperatures by 5 degrees in our data center, saving approximately 55 MWh annually (Penang, Malaysia).
• Increased the set point temperature by 2 degrees on our chiller unit, saving approximately 64 MWh annually (Penang, Malaysia).
• Replaced 250-W mercury lamps with 135-W LED fixtures, saving approximately 36 MWh annually (San Jose, California).

• Replaced T8/36-W bulbs with T5/21-W bulbs in our covered car park, saving approximately 112 MWh annually (Penang, Malaysia).
• Gathered Scope 1 and 2 emission data for our San Jose, California site.

• 2011

• Obtained Energy Star designation for San Jose Buildings 1 and 3.
• Implemented energy conservation programs at 80% of Altera office locations worldwide (field/leased offices).
• Implemented waste minimization (e.g., recycling) programs at 80% of Altera office locations worldwide (field/leased offices).
• Installed outside-air economizers in San Jose data center.
• Gathered Scope 1 and 2 emission data for our San Jose, California and Penang, Malaysia sites.

Altera's 2012 Environmental Goals include:

• Install two 500KW fuel cell systems (total of 1 MW) at Altera’s corporate headquarters in San Jose, California
• Reduce our overall CO2 emissions, per employee, by 2%

Altera has established an employee-run green team called the Green Council to review and implement employee environmental suggestions. Our VP/Director-level Environmental Council ensures the company’s environmental management system is effective and is regularly improving. View Altera’s environmental related projects.

Altera participates in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a not-for-profit organization providing a global system for companies to measure, disclose, manage, and share environmental impact data. Altera collects and reports information to CDP on our waste reduction, reuse, recycling, composting, and environmentally preferable product practices.

Environmental Performance Indicators
Altera collects environmental data from our two largest sites, San Jose, California and Penang, Malaysia. These sites make up 80% of our company and are primarily focused on administrative and research and development. The remaining 20% of our sites are made up of smaller field offices.