Sustainability is a major emphasis globally. The ability to produce goods that can be completely reused or composted is becoming of greater interest to consumers, governments  and major brand owners alike.

Sustainability is a topic of increasing interest in the field of flexible and printed electronics, and industry leaders report they are hearing questions about sustainability from their customers.

Dr. Melissa Grupen-Shemansky, CTO for SEMI, and executive director of SEMI FlexTech and SEMI NBMC, reported that various industry groups within SEMI are putting environmental sustainability of electronics high on the priority list. 

“Moreover, the increase in the number of Millennials – a highly-aware generational grouping within the workforce – ensures most organizations consider sustainability throughout the product development,” Dr. Grupen-Shemansky added.  “According to a recent Forbes survey, 50% of Millennials take sustainability into consideration when making product decisions, versus 34% of Generation X and 23% of Baby Boomers. This number is expected to continue to grow.”

As a leader in organic photovoltaics, Heliatek GmbH is well positioned for any discussion on sustainability. Stephan Kube, Heliatek’s head of marketing, said that customers “very often“ ask about sustaianability.

“To secure the future of this planet and to curb the climate change, a transition of the energy generation towards renewables plays an important role,” Kube said. “That is why everyone is looking for green energy generation technologies. We provide a new innovative solar technology with unique features (light, thin, flexible and green) that will help this energy transition towards green energy generation.”

Rob Frueh, senior business development manager for Brewer Science, said that sustainability is an important topic for the industry.

“Brewer Science is always excited to engage with our customers in the topic of sustainability. Being a GreenCircle Certified company for over six years, Brewer Science recognizes the importance and focus required in this area,” said Frueh. “The current sustainability conversations have been focused on meeting or exceeding our customers’ current environmental requirements. We’ve also been engaging in more forward-looking conversations centered around the potential future water-soluble and compostable sensors and tags.”

VITO researcher Kévin Le Blevennec, a team member with the OE-A sustainability group, said that sustainability has become an important aspect in interactions with stakeholders, including customers, suppliers, investors, legislative and the public.

“I do hear more and more questions – it’s an important topic,” said Wolfgang Mildner of msw tech. “And If I don’t hear it in discussions with new product designs, I bring it up.”

Printed batteries are one of the key needs for flexible electronics, and Imprint Energy has moved forward in the field with its zinc manganese oxide solid state batteries. These are ideal for smart labels and wearables, among other applications.

“We’re the power source in a smart tag or smart label, and our solution partner may be making it for a logistics company to track sensitive and valuable goods, or a wearable medical patch for managing one’s chronic illness,” Imprint Energy CEO Christine Ho said. “Distinctive and useful IoT products will be everywhere, and their makers will ship many millions of devices.

“Logistics firms like DHL, UPS and FedEx, and the pharma and food companies that rely on smart sensors to tell them that their vaccines or other valuable products didn’t get damaged, are pushing ahead with their broad sustainability mandates and vision,” added Ho. “It’s led us and our partners to be more quantitative, and share independent evaluation data on the sustainability impact and life cycle analysis of technologies beyond deployed.”