Month: April 2023

Originally published by National Parks Foundation

The National Park Foundation (NPF) is proud to recognize Subaru as our largest corporate partner, providing nearly $55 million in support since 2013. Subaru made the National Park Foundation an early partner of the Subaru Share the Love Event, became the sole automotive partner of the Find Your Park / Encuentra tu Parque campaign, and shared zero-landfill expertise through the Don’t Feed the Landfills initiative. The automaker’s combined efforts have helped increase public awareness and engagement across the National Park System and provided funding to programs and projects such as recycling, composting, and waste reduction operations to help protect over 85 million acres in more than 400 national parks. In addition to being the largest corporate partner of the National Park Foundation, Subaru of America has provided over $68 million to organizations working to conserve national parks.

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Every April 22nd, we celebrate Earth Day, and people from around the globe come together to advance sustainability and climate action. As a leader in the semiconductor industry, AMD has a role to play in mitigating climate change – not only by making our products more energy efficient, but also by powering the research needed to transition to a low-carbon economy.

Maximizing the computing performance delivered per watt of energy consumed is a vital aspect of our business strategy. Our products’ cutting-edge chip architecture, design and power management features have resulted in significant generational energy efficiency gains, and we have the track record to prove it.

In the data center, AMD EPYC™ processors power the most energy-efficient x86 servers, delivering exceptional performance and helping reduce energy costs.[i] AMD EPYC technology can drive energy efficiencies by meeting application performance demands with fewer physical servers than competitive solutions, which can result in a reduced data center footprint and associated energy use and GHG emissions. For example, to deliver 2,000 virtual machines, it takes an estimated 11 2P AMD EPYC™ 9654-powered servers or 17 2P Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8490H-based servers. The AMD solution takes an estimated 35 percent fewer servers, uses approximately 29 percent less power and provides estimated GHG emission savings equivalent to the carbon sequestration of 38 acres of forest in the United States.[ii]

Energy efficiency is paramount when it comes to supercomputing, which is the concentration of processing power across multiple parallel computers. AMD powers 75 percent of the top 20 most energy efficient supercomputers, according to the Green500 List, published in November 2022, and we received a 2022 SEAL Sustainable Product Award for our 30×25 Energy Efficiency Goal for Accelerated Computing initiative, driving innovative and impactful products “purpose-built” for a sustainable future in data centers.

Our continued ambitions are reflected in this AMD goal of a 30x increase by 2025 in energy efficiency for AMD processors and accelerators powering servers for high-performance computing and artificial intelligence-training. We are on track toward achieving our goal as of 2022, having reached 6.8x improvement in energy efficiency compared to 2020 using an accelerated compute node powered by one 3rd Gen AMD EPYC CPU and four AMD Instinct MI250x GPUs.[iii]

One of the most rewarding aspects of my work with our customers and partners is seeing AMD computing solutions that advance technology needs and sustainability objectives. For example, the LUMI supercomputer, powered by optimized 3rd Gen AMD EPYC™ CPUs and AMD Instinct™ MI250X GPUs (A+A), is helping scientists better understand and model climate change and its impacts, while running on 100 percent renewable energy and repurposing waste heat for a nearby town.

In addition to LUMI’s environmental operating benefits, it is being put to work on some of the world’s most urgent climate-related problems. As part of the European Green Deal and European Digital Strategy, the supercomputer is being used in the Destination Earth project (DestinE), which is funded by the EU’s Digital Europe Programme. The project focuses on climate modeling: the aim is to create a detailed model of Earth – a digital twin of our planet – that can be used to understand climate change and its impacts, including extreme weather phenomena such as floods and hurricanes. With LUMI, researchers can link the climate model to other models to understand the complex interplay between environmental processes and systems.

For Earth Day this year, I encourage you to engage with others across our value chain and share how AMD is striving to empower companies around the world to advance sustainability goals – we can do far more from collective efforts than as individuals. 

For more information, please visit: https://www.amd.com/en/corporate-responsibility/environmental-sustainability

Footnotes:

[i] EPYC-028B: EPYC-028B: SPECpower_ssj® 2008, SPECrate®2017_int_energy_base, and SPECrate®2017_fp_energy_base based on results published on SPEC’s website as of 11/10/22. VMmark® server power-performance (PPKW) based results published at https://www.vmware.com/products/vmmark/results3x.1.html?sort=score. The first 74 ranked SPECpower_ssj®2008 publications with the highest overall efficiency overall ssj_ops/W results were all powered by AMD EPYC processors. For SPECrate®2017 Integer (Energy Base), AMD EPYC CPUs power the first 4 of 5 SPECrate®2017_int_energy_base performance/system W scores. For SPECrate®2017 Floating Point (Energy Base), AMD EPYC CPUs power the first 8 of 9 SPECrate®2017_fp_energy_base performance/system W scores. For VMmark® server power-performance (PPKW), have the top two results for 2- and 4-socket matched pair results outperforming all other socket results. See https://www.amd.com/en/claims/epyc3x#faq-EPYC-028B for the full list. More information about SPEC® is available at http://www.spec.org. SPEC, SPECrate, and SPECpower are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. VMmark is a registered trademark of VMware in the US or other countries.

[ii] SP5TCO-036: As of 01/18/2023 based on AMD Internal analysis using the AMD EPYC™ Server Virtualization & Greenhouse Gas Emission TCO Estimation Tool – version 12.10 estimating the cost and quantity of 2P AMD 96 core EPYC™ 9654 powered server versus 2P Intel® Xeon® 60 core Platinum 8490H based server solutions required to deliver 2000 total virtual machines (VM), requiring 1 core and 8GB of memory per VM for a 3-year period. This includes VMware software license cost of $6,558.32 per socket + one additional software for every 32 CPU core increment in that socket. Environmental impact estimates made leveraging this data, using the Country / Region specific electricity factors from the ‘2020 Grid Electricity Emissions Factors v1.4 – September 2020’, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency ‘Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator’. This scenario contains many assumptions and estimates and, while based on AMD internal research and best approximations, should be considered an example for information purposes only, and not used as a basis for decision making over actual testing. For additional details, see https://www.amd.com/en/claims/epyc4#SP5TCO-036. 

[iii] EPYC-030: Calculation includes 1) base case kWhr use projections in 2025 conducted with Koomey Analytics based on available research and data that includes segment-specific projected 2025 deployment volumes and data center power utilization effectiveness (PUE) including GPU HPC and machine learning (ML) installations, and 2) AMD CPU socket and GPU node power consumptions incorporating segment-specific utilization (active vs. idle) percentages and multiplied by PUE to determine actual total energy use for calculation of the performance per Watt. 6.79x = (base case HPC node kWhr use projection in 2025 x AMD 2022 perf/Watt improvement using DGEMM and typical energy consumption + Base case ML node kWhr use projection in 2025 *AMD 2022 perf/Watt improvement using ML math and typical energy consumption) /(2020 perf/Watt * Base case projected kWhr usage in 2025). For more information on the goal and methodology, visit https://www.amd.com/en/corporate-responsibility/data-center-sustainability.

LINCOLN, Neb., April 19, 2023 /3BL Media/ – Philadelphia Insurance Companies (PHLY) has renewed its partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation to support the planting of 80,000 trees across the U.S. each year. The reforestation projects will focus on a mixture of sustainable forestry and land restoration efforts. Forty PHLY employees kicked-off this year’s campaign during a two-day planting project this week in Clackamas County, Oregon. They joined the Arbor Day Foundation and local forestry partners in Milo McIver State Park on Wednesday and Thursday planting 950 of the 80,000 trees.

Since 2015, the national insurance carrier has invited independent agents, brokers, and policyholders to support its annual mission of planting 80,000 trees in forests and communities throughout the U.S. by enrolling in paperless billing. The company uses the cost savings to help fund planting projects each year.

To date, the partnership has resulted in the planting of over 570,000 trees. In 2023, PHLY will fund tree planting efforts in forests located in Georgia, Michigan, Oregon, Washington, and West Virginia. The focus of these projects will assist restoration efforts involving fire recovery, watershed improvement, and better forest management on historically degraded land.

“It’s so exciting to partner with an organization who not only wants to make this world a better place, but also invites colleagues, clients, and communities to get involved in that effort,” said Dan Lambe, Chief Executive Officer of the Arbor Day Foundation. “Thanks to their dedicated support of helping restore our most vulnerable ecosystems, Philadelphia Insurance Companies has brought meaningful participation through their network to the large scale impact we strive to accomplish.”

For the past 50 years, the Arbor Day Foundation has worked to plant nearly 500 million trees in forests and communities around the world. Through a global network of partnerships, the Foundation facilitates projects that empower organizations of all sizes to reach their sustainability goals via measurable, impactful work through trees and forests. The Foundation recently announced an initiative to plant 500 million trees over the next 5 years in the forests and communities that need them most.

“This is a remarkably fun and important project for PHLY and to our employees, who appreciate the opportunity to make a sustainable impact all across the country,” said John Glomb, President and CEO of Philadelphia Insurance Companies. “The continued support of our business partners, customers, and employees has helped us plant over half a million trees in areas in need, benefitting several communities for years to come.”

In addition to helping recover devastated forests, the PHLY80K Trees initiative aims to provide security for communities across the U.S. where. As insurance losses from increasingly frequent wildfires and natural disasters impact the lives of more and more individuals, promoting healthier forest ecosystems helps protect surrounding communities from further loss. Healthy tree populations help to mitigate flooding, improve air and water quality, and stabilize soil, all of which can help minimize and even prevent excess damage when disasters occur.

About Philadelphia Insurance Companies

Philadelphia Insurance Companies designs, markets, and underwrites commercial property/casualty and professional liability insurance products incorporating value added coverages and services for select industries. The Company is rated “A++” (Superior) by AM Best Company and “A+” for counterparty credit and financial strength by Standard & Poor’s. In business for over 60 years, PHLY is nationally recognized as a member of Ward’s Top 50, one of the Best Places to Work in Insurance, and one of the Healthiest 100 Workplaces in America. Based outside of Philadelphia, the organization has offices strategically located in all major metro areas across the United States to provide superior service. For more information, please visit www.PHLY.com

About the Arbor Day Foundation

Founded in 1972, the Arbor Day Foundation is the world’s largest membership nonprofit organization dedicated to planting trees. With a focus in communities and forests of greatest need, the Foundation — alongside its more than 1 million members, supporters and valued partners — has helped to plant nearly 500 million trees in more than 50 countries. Guided by its mission to inspire people to plant, nurture and celebrate trees, the Arbor Day Foundation is committed to unlocking the power of trees to help solve critical issues facing people and the planet. Learn more about the impact of the Arbor Day Foundation at arborday.org.

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