Companies with good ESG intentions make promises - Companies with an ESG framework make impact

As an emerging photonics company, we encounter diverse reactions when sharing our ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) initiatives. For our deep green investors, these efforts are essential, they expect regular progress reports and our active engagement. On the other hand, some US investment funds view ESG initiatives with skepticism, questioning how on earth we can prioritize them when, in their view, more pressing matters demand our attention in a young, disruptive company.

At SuperLight Photonics, ESG awareness is imprinted in our DNA. We not only commit to our ESG strategy because our investors want us to, but because we believe in its foundations and support its principles. Simply because it is the right thing to do.

We also know from experience that an early start of ESG initiatives makes it easier to implement and make it part of routines. However, reality catches up when the implementation phase is reached: good intentions only go that far, but the result counts.

The article below explains how we make ESG work and impactful at SuperLight Photonics.

At SuperLight Photonics, we believe that ESG initiatives should be imprinted in our DNA

The global conversation around Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) issues has reached every industry. As sustainability and responsible practices become integral to corporate identity, even nascent companies are finding ways to make a difference.

For a startup in a specialized field like PIC (Photonics Integrated Circuit) design, the challenges might seem more daunting. After all, fabless chip companies do not own their manufacturing facilities, and their production processes are by definition not environmentally friendly. However, despite these challenges, there are numerous pathways to make a significant and meaningful ESG impact as a high-tech business.

How a fabless company can become ESG responsible

Let’s dive into the 3 ESG foundations that drive positive change across environmental, social, and governance dimensions and the umbrella framework that structures the different initiatives, goals, actions and results.

ESG Framework

To help us keep track of our ESG initiatives and results, we use an ESG framework based on the UN structure that outlines the “United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: 17 Goals to Transform the World”

We have categorized our activities into 2 areas of the 17 ESG goals: internal impact and external impact. The internal category focuses on practices that we can implement within SuperLight Photonics, while the external category highlights how our technology can contribute to ESG goals through our customers' applications.

Environmental impact: green photonics & sustainable manufacturing

Fabless companies don’t manufacture their own chips, but they can have a considerable influence over the sustainability of their products. Photonics technologies inherently contribute to sustainability through energy savings and green applications. In the field of photonics applications, there are opportunities to design products that enhance energy efficiency and reduce environmental footprints in downstream industries. Also, the manufacturing process can be managed upstream.

Designing for energy efficiency and sustainable manufacturing

Photonics, with its advanced capabilities in imaging, sensing and data transmission, offers significant energy savings over traditional electronic components. SuperLight Photonics focusses on developing photonic integrated circuits (PICs) that miniaturize the technology, reduce the form factor of devices and minimize energy consumption. Our products offer an energy-efficient alternative to traditional light sources (such as halogen lamps) and legacy lasers, it is also a miniaturized version of existing supercontinuum solutions, reducing large bulky devices to small and portable equipment. Additionally, the long lifetime of our product minimizes its environmental impact throughout its lifecycle. In short, we cut down on the carbon footprint of our solution with improved energy efficiency and with reduced manufacturing resources.

Even though we outsource manufacturing to foundries, we conduct upstream supplier management and consider adherence to high environmental standards (e.g. ISO 14001, green certificates) during the selection of our production partners and suppliers. We also review their ESG initiatives to ensure that the entire supply chain is aligned with our goals.

Innovation for sustainable applications

Photonics technology typically has applications in healthcare, communication, and environmental monitoring, all of which can significantly contribute to societal well-being. SuperLight Photonics invests in research and development to create technology that has a direct, positive impact on society. Our customers use our light source in OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography) applications with non-destructive quality inspection for food, textiles, waste and semiconductors that make a large economic and environmental impact.

Additionally, our compact and portable laser solutions drive innovations in the development of equipment for medical diagnostics, providing new methods for early disease detection and significant simplification of the diagnostic process.

Applications in the world Fundamental technology with enormous societal impact

OCT in semiconductor inspection

Did you know that amazing 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) chips are visually inspected every year?

And that inspection is usually the bottleneck in the production process?

Cost Savings and production efficiency

Companies spend millions of euros every month on visual wafer inspection, using a laser light and a camera with imaging software to look for anomalies and/or dust particles. We can reduce this spending significantly resulting in overall manufacturing costs savings and also minimize the number of defective wafers that need to be discarded or reworked. We will also streamline the semiconductor production process, leading to increased manufacturing efficiency and throughput, eventually impacting carbon emission of the production process.

How does this work?

By increasing energy efficiency and reducing waste in semiconductor manufacturing, we contribute to sustainability efforts and the mitigation of climate change.

Semiconductor manufacturing contributes to 31% of global greenhouse emissions. Our technology reduces energy consumption during defect detection processes and will reduce the industrial contribution to this carbon emission.

Since our OCT solution can identify and address defects early in the production process, we help minimizing the production of defective wafers and help reduce the amount of waste generated during semiconductor manufacturing, including scrapped or reworked wafers. We optimize resource utilization by ensuring that only high-quality wafers proceed through the manufacturing process and hence reduce the consumption of raw materials, chemicals, and energy required for semiconductor production, conserving natural resources and reducing environmental impact.

OCT in medical analysis

In medical applications, we replace legacy halogen or SLED light sources or monochromatic lasers by supercontinuum lasers, which means that we can do diagnostics in real time, we become faster and more efficient.

For instance, when removing a tumor, it is vital to ensure that all cancerous tissue is eliminated, but equally crucial to avoid removing healthy tissue. Doing so can hinder the healing process and increase recovery costs.

Currently, this tissue must be sent to a laboratory, where wideband lasers combined with hyperspectral imaging are used to confirm whether all cancerous cells have been removed.

But what if we could bring the wideband laser technology directly into the operating room? Allowing surgeons to immediately assess tissue margins, during surgery, ensuring more accurate and complete tumor removal - all without waiting for lab results. SuperLight Photonics offers a perfect alternative that allows in-theatre diagnosis. It is a truly portable solution, it has a small formfactor for handheld and even battery powered solution that needs no calibration, ready for instant use.

Apart from this example, we have entered development projects with research institutes & OEMs for medical imaging based on endoscopy and optical coherence tomography (OCT). We are collaborating with a dermatology research company to enhance their OCT solution by replacing the current LED light source, which lacks coherence and sufficient brightness.

In short, we envision a future where supercontinuum lasers will create a paradigm shift in many fields currently dominated by legacy light sources. There are numerous validated use cases in the quality inspection and medical field that go beyond our product-related energy efficiency and resource-saving benefits - they demonstrate important societal impact when our technology comes to live in real-world applications.

Social Impact: Fostering Innovation, Diversity, and Education

Growth companies have the flexibility to influence culture and impact communities, and this includes fostering a socially responsible business environment.

Creating a gender-balanced and multi-cultural workforce

A strong social responsibility strategy also includes focusing on diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We actively recruit and support employees from an international background. Given the ongoing gender imbalance in the tech sector, we actively seek to recruit women, aiming to bring a more diverse range of talent into the field of photonics technology. Establishing partnerships with universities and supporting student initiatives helps to create more accessible pathways for students and especially women into the tech and engineering world.

Investing in education and training

Photonics is an interdisciplinary field that requires advanced skills, and there is a significant gap in the workforce for experts in this area. As a startup in this field, we support educational initiatives by providing internships, and we support training programs form partners like PhotonDelta & PhotonJobs, aimed at preparing students for careers in the photonics technology. These initiatives not only contribute to the growth of the industry but also build a more skilled and diverse workforce, helping to alleviate talent shortages in the long term.

We also invest in training and development of our team. The recently introduced and popular Lunch & Learn sessions are a perfect example of how a small company can simultaneously train and strengthen its team dynamics.

Governance: ethical leadership, transparency and accountability

Strong governance is essential for any company, particularly a startup trying to make its mark in a high-tech industry like photonics. At SuperLight Photonics, we want to ensure to operate with ethical standards, transparency, and accountability.

Establishing transparent practices

For a company to have a meaningful ESG impact, it must be transparent about its operations. Tech companies can build trust with investors, customers, and other stakeholders by sharing their ESG goals and progress. This involves releasing annual sustainability reports, setting measurable goals, and adhering to industry standards for transparency. This is particularly important in a tech-heavy industry, where stakeholders need to be confident that their investments and purchases align with their values. At SuperLight Photonics, we have a set of KPIs that are reported on a quarterly basis and shared with our employees and investors.

Ethical business practices

As a fabless company, outsourcing manufacturing is the inherent way of working. However, this also means ensuring that all partners, including our foundries, uphold high ethical standards. This involves codes of conduct related to labor practices, workplace safety, and environmental regulations. Additionally, fostering a supply chain that upholds fair labor practices, avoids conflict minerals, and ensures workers' rights can set the foundation for the startup’s ethical commitment to governance.

Advisory Board guidance

SuperLight Photonics has an Advisory Board in place to provide expert guidance and strategic insights that help drive innovation and business growth. By bringing together seasoned professionals from various industries, the Advisory Board ensures that we stay at the forefront of photonics technology, navigating market trends, technical challenges, and opportunities with greater precision. This diverse expertise allows us to make informed decisions, aligns our vision with market demands, and maintains a competitive edge in the rapidly evolving photonics sector. They add a layer of accountability, which is crucial for building trust with investors, customers, and other stakeholders. In short, an advisory board helps ensure that our operations, strategies, and decisions align with the principles of responsible governance, sustainability, and social impact, all core components of ESG.

Engaging with stakeholders

Regular engagement with stakeholders like employees, investors and customers ensures that SuperLight Photonics remains accountable to its ESG objectives. We engage employees in launching initiatives such as local social responsibility projects or gathering sustainability ideas, building a collaborative and participatory approach. By creating a culture of openness, we cultivate trust and demonstrate that we value transparency.

Artificial exercise or relevant routine

As a fabless PIC company, without our own manufacturing facilities, we have no waste streams to monitor or raw materials to source. We do not use hazardous and chemical materials, and our energy consumption and carbon emission are very limited in an office and lab environment.

The office is a rental building which leaves us with very few options to optimize energy use – we have limited choice in heating, office light source or energy provider. We stay away from the “penny wise, pound foolish” approach as we do want to count the number pages we print (we're a paperless office) or the batteries we use. As a start-up, we are by definition frugal and cautious not to over-consume or over-produce. For example, we do not travel more than strictly needed, we are mindful and moderate in our spending and purchasing decisions, and this goes hand-in-hand with our ESG goals.

We have some smaller wins in the packaging and logistics where we optimize packing to reduce waste and shipping emissions and re-use original boxes and crates. We recycle office and lab waste, and we have a travel policy with focus on minimizing environmental impact, like encouraging the use of public transport and preferencing trains over planes.

Our KPI set is dynamic and changes over time. It frames our ESG goals and creates awareness, and even small measurable impact is important to the outcome. Implementing an ESG framework early builds character that avoids “change resistance” later as everybody is involved, there is no last-minute scrambling when reporting is required and historical data is already available.

Conclusion

Even though a fabless photonics company may not own a manufacturing facility or be able to directly control every aspect of the supply chain, there are many ways to make a lasting ESG impact. From designing energy-efficient products that reduce the environmental footprint of industries to fostering an inclusive and diverse workforce, we have the tools and opportunities to shape a more sustainable and socially responsible future.

The ESG framework with KPIs and goals creates discipline and official structure to comply with, it builds a culture of sustainability, creates awareness and increases employee engagement. Focusing on governance practices that prioritize transparency, accountability, and ethics, we can become leaders in both the tech world and the growing movement toward responsible business. In the end, innovation and sustainability don’t have to be at odds, they can (and should) go hand-in-hand.

For SuperLight Photonics, it is a strategic commitment driven by a genuine desire to lead by example and ensure compliance, rooted in our intrinsic motivation to make a positive impact. It begins with a small effort, but it creates a meaningful effect. Yes, we have impact!