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2011 Corporate Citizenship Report

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Management controls

TI's water initiatives are overseen by the company's vice president of worldwide facilities and environmental, safety and health (ESH), who reports directly to TI's chief financial officer. These initiatives are coordinated and managed by the company's water process system team, which comprises corporate environmental leaders as well as water quality, chemistry and system experts.

The Audit Committee of TI's board of directors oversees the company's environmental compliance efforts. It also oversees TI's risk assessment process. When water issues such as water quality or local supply constraints may affect our operations, we include the Audit Committee in reviews to help them fulfill their oversight responsibilities.

TI uses stringent management controls to monitor and reduce potential water risks related to water quality, water supply, flooding or drought. Our business continuity and water process system teams monitor conditions and respond as needed.

Additional TI controls related to water use include:
  • Requiring all sites to adhere to TI's environmental, safety and health policies and principles, which holistically ensure that we conserve resources.
  • Carefully screening chemicals used in manufacturing that have the potential to impact water quality. We restrict the use of some chemicals and ban others outright. To ensure that water quality complies with regulatory limits before being discharged, we adhere to established processes and controls.
  • Maintaining comprehensive water-management programs at all sites to identify and mitigate potential impacts. Most of our management systems are certified by the Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS) 18001 and the International Standardization Organization (ISO) 14001. (OHSAS and ISO are internationally recognized certification bodies that establish environmental, safety and health management criteria.) All but four of our newer sites are OHSAS-certified and all but three are ISO-certified.
  • Regular meetings of our water process system team to collaborate on water-related projects, share information and best practices, and troubleshoot issues.
  • Having local management teams track water use, implement reduction best practices, conduct routine site assessments, and allocate capital to mitigate risks when needed. They also monitor and ensure compliance with regulatory and TI standards and report monthly to our worldwide ESH management team. (Our own water standard establishes minimum expectations for tracking water use, and for maintaining water collection, monitoring and treatment systems. It is not meant to be used in place of local or national requirements, but in addition to those requirements). Individual operations have specific water-management plans that take into account local climate and hydrogeology, water availability, and existing controls.
  • Evaluating each site's adherence to both company and regulatory standards through our internal audit program.


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