The water footprint of electronics manufacturing is staggering and largely invisible to the end user. From semiconductor fabrication to battery production, the IT equipment on your desk required thousands of litres of water to manufacture. Understanding this hidden water cost adds an important dimension to the environmental case for extending equipment lifecycles, purchasing refurbished devices, and managing IT assets responsibly at end of life.
Semiconductor Fabrication: The Thirstiest Process
Semiconductor fabrication, the process of creating the processors, memory chips, and other integrated circuits at the heart of electronic devices, is by far the most water-intensive stage of electronics manufacturing. Modern fabrication plants (fabs) require ultra-pure water (UPW) for wafer rinsing, chemical mechanical polishing, photolithography processes, and cleaning between production steps.
The purity requirements are extreme. UPW used in chip manufacturing must be thousands of times purer than drinking water, with contaminant levels measured in parts per trillion. Producing this ultra-pure water requires extensive filtration, deionisation, and treatment processes that consume significantly more raw water than the UPW they produce. A typical ratio is 1.5 to 2 litres of raw water for every litre of UPW.
A modern semiconductor fab can use 30 to 50 million litres of water per day. Intel, TSMC, and Samsung have all disclosed water usage figures that underscore the enormous scale of consumption. TSMC, which manufactures chips for many of the world’s leading electronics brands, consumed approximately 78 million tonnes of water in a single year.
As chip manufacturing moves to smaller and more advanced process nodes (3nm, 2nm), water consumption per wafer actually increases because more processing steps and more cleaning cycles are required.
Battery Production
Lithium-ion battery manufacturing, which supplies the batteries in laptops, tablets, and smartphones, is another water-intensive process. Water is used in electrode preparation, cell assembly (in controlled humidity environments), electrolyte preparation, and quality testing and formation cycling.
Beyond the manufacturing process itself, the raw material extraction for batteries has significant water implications. Lithium extraction from brine deposits, primarily in South America’s “lithium triangle” (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile), involves pumping lithium-rich brine to the surface and evaporating it in large ponds. This process can consume millions of litres per tonne of lithium produced and can lower local water tables, affecting communities and ecosystems that depend on the same water resources.
Cobalt mining, another key battery material, uses water-intensive processing methods including flotation separation and leaching. Mining operations in water-scarce regions create competition between industrial water use and community needs.
Display Manufacturing
LCD and OLED display manufacturing requires clean-room environments and extensive washing processes similar to semiconductor fabrication, though at somewhat lower purity requirements. The glass substrates, thin-film transistor arrays, colour filters, and polarising layers that make up a modern display each require multiple water-intensive processing steps. Larger displays consume proportionally more water, which is relevant as average screen sizes continue to grow.
Printed Circuit Board Production
Manufacturing printed circuit boards involves chemical etching processes that use water as a solvent and rinsing agent. Multiple wash cycles are required between processing steps, and the wastewater contains dissolved copper, solder, and various chemicals that require treatment before discharge. A single multilayer PCB can require 100 or more litres of water to produce.
The Full Water Footprint
When you combine all manufacturing stages, from raw material extraction through component manufacturing to final assembly and testing, the total water footprint of a single business laptop is estimated at 30,000 to 50,000 litres. This figure varies depending on the specific components, where they are manufactured, and the water efficiency of each facility in the supply chain.
For context, this means the water used to manufacture your laptop could fill a backyard swimming pool. And this is just one device, an organisation purchasing 500 laptops annually is indirectly responsible for 15 to 25 million litres of water consumption in its IT supply chain.
Water Stress and Geographic Risk
Much of the world’s semiconductor and electronics manufacturing is concentrated in regions facing increasing water stress. Taiwan, home to TSMC and many other chip manufacturers, experiences periodic droughts that have forced factories to reduce production. South Korea, another major semiconductor manufacturing hub, faces growing competition for water resources. And the lithium mining regions of South America are among the driest places on earth.
Climate change is expected to increase water stress in many of these regions, creating supply chain risks for electronics manufacturers and, by extension, for organisations that depend on regular IT equipment procurement.
What This Means for IT Lifecycle Management
The enormous water footprint of electronics manufacturing strengthens the case for extending equipment lifecycles. Every additional year a laptop remains in productive use is 30,000 to 50,000 litres of water that does not need to be consumed for a replacement device. Refurbishment and reuse programmes deliver water conservation benefits that complement the more commonly reported carbon and resource savings.
When reporting on your sustainability performance, including water conservation figures alongside carbon and materials metrics provides a more complete picture of your programme’s environmental benefits. For guidance on measuring these impacts, see our guide on measuring the environmental impact of IT disposal.
]]>