Category: 3. Business

Samsung Electronics has achieved UL Solutions’ “Zero Waste to Landfill” Platinum designation across all of its global manufacturing sites — marking the first major milestone in the company’s environmental strategy.

 

“Zero Waste to Landfill” is a claim validation program administered by UL Solutions, a global safety science company. Designations are determined by the percentage of waste diverted from landfills, serving as a key indicator of a company’s resource circularity efforts. Platinum represents a 100% landfill diversion rate, while Gold and Silver represent 95% to 99% and 90% to 94% respectively.

 

Since announcing its Environmental Strategy in 2022, focused on climate action and resource circularity, Samsung has steadily advanced sustainable management practices — repurposing waste generated at its sites into valuable resources and expanding other recycling initiatives worldwide.

 

Last year, all 10 business sites of the Device Solutions (DS) Division earned Platinum designation through integrated validation. This year in July, the Device eXperience (DX) Division’s Hungarian subsidiary, SEH-P, also achieved Platinum, marking the final step in securing Platinum status across all 22 domestic and overseas DX manufacturing sites.

 

 

Samsung Electronics has established key directions for waste management — strengthening sorting systems, expanding reuse and increasing resource recovery — and has been implementing them through concrete initiatives.

 

Examples include introducing more refined waste separation systems within worksites and strengthening employee training to ensure thorough sorting.¹ Food waste and used paper are composted,² while general and construction waste is recycled into alternative fuels³ or basic raw materials.⁴ In addition, e-waste and battery residues are repurposed for solid fuel production.⁵ Through these efforts, Samsung has made steady progress toward its goal of achieving Zero Waste to Landfill.

 

 

Samsung is continuously developing technologies to recycle waste generated from semiconductor production processes into materials that can be reused in semiconductor manufacturing. For example, waste liquids are reused as a cleaning agent in scrubbers that reduce air pollutants and as water treatment agents in wastewater treatment facilities. In addition, adsorbents, activated carbon and catalysts used to control air pollutants undergo regeneration and are reused as raw materials for the same applications.

 

 

Samsung recycled approximately 1.32 million tonnes of waste in 2024 — equivalent to 260,000 five-tonne waste trucks.

 

In addition to reducing waste at its worksites, Samsung has also repurposed by-products and discarded materials into new resources. The Galaxy S25, launched this year, has incorporated recycled cobalt extracted from previously used Galaxy smartphones and batteries discarded during the manufacturing process through Samsung’s Circular Battery Supply Chain. Discarded wafer trays from semiconductor manufacturing were recycled and applied to the Galaxy S25 series’ components as well.

 

Looking ahead, Samsung Electronics plans to further enhance systematic waste sorting and material-specific management to secure high-quality recycled resources and expand their application in products, strengthening its commitment to resource circularity.

 

Junhwa Lee, Executive Vice President and Head of Global EHS Office, DX Division at Samsung Electronics, highlighted the significance of the achievement as “a major milestone” in the company’s environmental management strategy, adding that the company will continue to apply innovation across all areas of its business to put sustainable management into practice.

 

More information on Samsung Electronics’ sustainability initiatives can be found on the Samsung Electronics Sustainability website.

 

 

¹ Subsidiaries in Hungary (SEH-P), Malaysia (SEMA), Brazil (SEDA-P(M)), Türkiye (SETK-P), etc.
² Subsidiaries in Thailand (TSE-P), India (SIEL-P(C)), Malaysia (SEMA), Mexico (SEM-P), etc.
³ Subsidiaries in Vietnam (SEHC), Malaysia (SEMA), the United States (SEHA), etc.
⁴ Subsidiaries in Vietnam (SEV, SEVT), etc.
⁵ Subsidiary in Indonesia (SEIN-P)

By Grégoire Thomas, Regional Head of Integrated B2B, Samsung Electronics, Southeast Asia and Oceania

 

Picture this: a student in rural Indonesia collaborates on a science presentation with peers in Singapore and Thailand, using their AI-powered tablets to translate their respective languages for one another in real-time while an intelligent display in their classrooms brings their shared workspace to life. Far from being science fiction, these scenarios are already possible today, thanks to technology.

 

Working with educators across Southeast Asia and Oceania, I have had the privilege to witness a generation of digital-native students who don’t just use technology; but intuitively reach for it as something deeply embedded into their every day. Compared to preceding generations, these students approach problems differently, learn differently, and simply put, are also expecting their educational experiences to match the increasingly connected world that they will one day inherit from us.

 

This is not a question of whether technology belongs in education, but instead, whether we can be bold enough to reimagine how education can further grow thanks to technology.

 

 

Classrooms Powered by AI

 

 

At Bett 2025 earlier this year, we unveiled something I’m genuinely excited about – our new AI-powered Interactive Display that integrates Samsung AI Assistant, equipping educators with more intelligent and intuitive tools to both organise and transform lessons.

 

Features like AI Summary help teachers create concise lesson recaps automatically, making planning much easier and simplifying post-class reviews for students. Meanwhile, Live Transcript converts conversations into text in real time for students to revisit and reinforce what they’ve learned in class. Armed with these tools, educators can transform lessons into dynamic and interactive experiences that maximise learning outcomes.

 

 

Furthermore, we recently rolled out the Samsung Digital Lighthouse School programme in Indonesia, starting with two schools: Al Muslim Bekasi and Salman Al Farisi Bandung. The programme aims to accelerate the digital transformation journeys of schools and enhance the learning experiences of over 2,500 students with AI-enabled Galaxy devices such as the Galaxy Tab S and A Series, with holistic protection by Samsung Knox.

 

At the end of the day, we want to have technology that inspires both educators and students to explore, discover and collaborate. Technology should not overshadow the human connection but instead, enhance it.

 

 

Equity and Ecosystems  

A concern that many educators have with technology is equity and access. When done right, technology can bridge, instead of widen, the gaps.

 

When a student in Bandung accesses the same AI-powered learning tools as someone in Seoul; when language barriers are removed through real-time translation; and when personalised learning can be adapted to the different paces and styles of both teachers and students, that is democratisation in action. A decade ago, high-speed internet used to be accessible only to those who could afford it.; today, these technologies are well within reach of most students across our region. Technology for technology’s sake doesn’t solve anything; instead, it is about creating ecosystems that benefit everyone.

 

However, educators are also just as concerned about having the right solutions on hand to help them fully maximise that potential, not just for students, but also for teaching staff. We work with local Edutech partners for classroom device management, as well as change management support, to better enhance learning outcomes for students. These collaborations are built around the understanding that technologies, like tablets for classrooms, are only as transformative as the support system around them. After all, tools are only as good as the hands that wield them.

 

 

Working within the System, Not Against It

Beyond devices, software and services, it is extremely important to have a clear understanding of national education strategies, curriculum requirements, as well as the long-term vision for digital learning. We have been engaging and collaborating with education ministries across the region to ensure that initiatives are designed to support and integrate with these existing frameworks.  

 

Our Samsung Learning Hub, launched in January, exemplifies this approach. This digital resource hub for educators offers online training, teaching materials, certifications, and a community to further support teaching and learning outcomes. For digital learning initiatives to succeed, they must aim to complement and not replace traditional teaching methods.

 

 

The Imperative for Collaboration

The future of education cannot be a solo act, but must be built through collaboration among educators, students, parents, policymakers, and technology companies like Samsung. Here is my challenge to everyone reading this: whether you are an educator frustrated by the limitations of current teaching methods, a policymaker grappling with budget constraints, or even a fellow technology professional looking to make a real difference:

 

Let’s stop talking about the future of education and start building it. Let’s be bold enough to experiment, humbly explore new innovations to figure out what works, and persist in our efforts to continue iterating until we get it right, together.

 

Our students today will inherit a world shaped by AI, climate change, and other challenges that we have yet to discover. They deserve an education that prepares them not just to adapt to that world, but to lead it. For that to happen, we must also ensure that they are both enabled and empowered with the right tools and support to drive better and more effective learning outcomes in this digital-first world. Are we ready to lead it together?

 

 

Experience the Future of Education with Samsung at Bett Asia

At Samsung, we believe in building the future of education together. We welcomed attendees to experience our vision in action at Bett Asia in Kuala Lumpur that happened from 1-2 October 2025, and discover how technology can enhance, not replace, the human connection in the classroom. Attendees had the opportunity to speak with our experts, see live demonstrations, and learn how Samsung is helping create dynamic, interactive, and equitable learning environments for the next generation.

 

Let’s start building tomorrow’s classroom, today.

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That suggests anyone could set up similar hardware somewhere else in the world and likely obtain their own collection of sensitive information. After all, the researchers restricted their experiment to only off-the-shelf satellite hardware: a $185 satellite dish, a $140 roof mount with a $195 motor, and a $230 tuner card, totaling less than $800.

“This was not NSA-level resources. This was DirecTV-user-level resources. The barrier to entry for this sort of attack is extremely low,” says Matt Blaze, a computer scientist and cryptographer at Georgetown University and law professor at Georgetown Law. “By the week after next, we will have hundreds or perhaps thousands of people, many of whom won’t tell us what they’re doing, replicating this work and seeing what they can find up there in the sky.”

One of the only barriers to replicating their work, the researchers say, would likely be the hundreds of hours they spent on the roof adjusting their satellite. As for the in-depth, highly technical analysis of obscure data protocols they obtained, that may now be easier to replicate, too: The researchers are releasing their own open-source software tool for interpreting satellite data, also titled “Don’t Look Up,” on Github.

The researchers’ work may, they acknowledge, enable others with less benevolent intentions to pull the same highly sensitive data from space. But they argue it will also push more of the owners of that satellite communications data to encrypt that data, to protect themselves and their customers. “As long as we’re on the side of finding things that are insecure and securing them, we feel very good about it,” says Schulman.

There’s little doubt, they say, that intelligence agencies with vastly superior satellite receiver hardware have been analyzing the same unencrypted data for years. In fact, they point out that the US National Security Agency warned in a 2022 security advisory about the lack of encryption for satellite communications. At the same time, they assume that the NSA—and every other intelligence agency from Russia to China—has set up satellite dishes around the world to exploit that same lack of protection. (The NSA did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment).

“If they aren’t already doing this,” jokes UCSD cryptography professor Nadia Heninger, who co-led the study, “then where are my tax dollars going?”

Heninger compares their study’s revelation—the sheer scale of the unprotected satellite data available for the taking—to some of the revelations of Edward Snowden that showed how the NSA and Britain’s GCHQ were obtaining telecom and internet data on an enormous scale, often by secretly tapping directly into communications infrastructure.

“The threat model that everybody had in mind was that we need to be encrypting everything, because there are governments that are tapping undersea fiber optic cables or coercing telecom companies into letting them have access to the data,” Heninger says. “And now what we’re seeing is, this same kind of data is just being broadcast to a large fraction of the planet.”

By Bill Peters

Goldman analysts upgrade Estee Lauder’s stock, saying a sales rebound could happen sooner than investors think

Goldman Sachs analysts see “an upcoming fundamental inflection” for Estee Lauder as the cosmetics maker tries to turn its fortunes around.

Cosmetics giant Estee Lauder Cos.’s rebound could take hold sooner than expected, Goldman Sachs analysts said on Monday, as trends firm up in the U.S. and China and the company puts more focus on newer and higher-end products and sales through TikTok and Amazon.

The Goldman analysts upgraded shares of Estee Lauder (EL) to a buy rating. That upgrade helped send the stock 5.8% higher on Monday.

The analysts, in a research note, said they saw “an upcoming fundamental inflection” for Estee Lauder, which is known for brands like Clinique and Aveda, along with its namesake products. They added that the company could return to sales growth as soon as its fiscal first quarter, which ran through last month.

“Ultimately, we believe investors need evidence of sustainable toplinegrowth and share gains, and we believe this could happen earlierthan expected (possibly FQ1), and with continued progress on improved profitability, this should drive a re-rating in the stock,” the analysts said.

Higher costs of living, competition, tariffs and an online ecosystem that has sped up trend cycles have weighed on beauty-industry heavyweights. Estee Lauder this year has slashed thousands of jobs and announced plans to accelerate new-product development and take steps to be a bigger player in more upscale beauty products.

In February, Chief Executive Stéphane de La Faverie said that Estee Lauder had been “too slow to seize new opportunities” and that the company planned to deliver nearly a third of its product launches in under 12 months. In August, he called the moves “the biggest organizational transformation that we have done in our history.”

However, management in August said it expected better sales trends for mainland China – a key market that the Goldman analysts said makes up around a quarter of Estee Lauder’s sales – and at places like airport duty-free shops and cruise-ship terminals. Those trends were reasons to be optimistic, the analysts said.

“While there has been some debate around the elevated competition from local brands,” the analysts said of the backdrop in China, “we believe rising urban consumption should support [Estee Lauder’s] growth and the steps it is taking as part of its strategic vision should support further market share gains ahead.”

The analysts also said that while Estee Lauder’s business in North America lost a lot of ground over recent years, it is more diversified today. They said the company has less than one-third of its overall exposure to department stores. The rest, they said, was spread out across Amazon, Estee Lauder’s direct-to-consumer business, and other stores.

That current composition of its business, the analysts said, “should allow the company to reach its consumers in a more effective manner.”

The analysts noted that Estee Lauder first launched Clinique on Amazon in the U.S. last year, which has helped that brand pick up a bigger slice of the market. They said Estee Lauder currently has 11 brands on Amazon in the U.S. The company also recently launched two brands on TikTok Shop.

“Notably, [management] views these platforms as an important part of its new media model wherein these platforms serve the purpose of amplifying demand for its brands as consumers predominantly search for beauty products across these platforms,” the analysts said.

“While department stores will likely get even smaller over time as other growth channels pick-up in the mix,” they added, “we believe department stores remain an important channel to drive trial and certain categories will likely thrive in brick-and-mortar, such as fragrances and luxury skincare.”

-Bill Peters

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• At Open Compute Project Summit (OCP) 2025, we’re sharing details about the direction of next-generation network fabrics for our AI training clusters.
• We’ve expanded our network hardware portfolio and are contributing new disaggregated network platforms to OCP.
• We look forward to continued collaboration with OCP to open designs for racks, servers, storage boxes, and motherboards to benefit companies of all sizes across the industry.

At Meta, we believe that open hardware is a catalyst for innovation — especially as data center infrastructure increasingly supports new and emerging AI technologies. Open hardware plays a crucial role in enabling disaggregation, allowing us to break down traditional data center technologies into their core components. This approach empowers us to build systems that are more flexible, scalable, and efficient.

Since co-founding the Open Compute Project (OCP) in 2011, Meta has shared data center and component designs, and open-sourced our network operating system, FBOSS,  to inspire new ideas both within our own operations and across the industry. These efforts have played an important role in making Meta’s data centers sustainable and efficient. Today, through OCP, we continue to advance open network technologies for the next generation of AI applications.

We’re announcing several new milestones for our data center networking: 

• The evolution of Disaggregated Scheduled Fabric (DSF) to support scale-out interconnect for large AI clusters that span entire data center buildings. 
• A new Non-Scheduled Fabric (NSF) architecture based entirely on shallow-buffer, disaggregated Ethernet switches that will support our largest AI clusters like Prometheus. 
• The addition of Minipack3N, based on NVIDIA’s Ethernet Spectrum-4 ASIC, to our portfolio of 51 Tbps OCP switches that use OCP’s SAI and Meta’s FBOSS software stack.
• The launch of the Ethernet for Scale-Up Networking (ESUN) initiative, where Meta has worked with other large-scale operators and leading Ethernet vendors to advance using Ethernet for scale-up networking (specifically the high-performance interconnects required for next-generation AI accelerator architectures..

Dual-Stage DSF: Scaling Scheduled Fabrics for Larger AI Clusters

At last year’s OCP Global Summit we shared Disaggregated Scheduled Fabric (DSF), a VOQ-based system powered by the open OCP-SAI standard and FBOSS. The DSF fabric supports an open and standard Ethernet-based RoCE interface to endpoints and accelerators across several xPUs and NICs, including Meta’s MTIA as well as from several vendors.

Over the last year, we have evolved DSF to a 2-stage architecture, scaling to support a non-blocking fabric that interconnects up to 18,432 XPUs. These clusters are a fundamental building block for constructing AI clusters that span regions (and even multiple regions) in order to meet the increased capacity and performance demands of Meta’s AI workloads.

Non-Scheduled Fabrics (NSF) for Large AI Clusters

In parallel with the evolution of the DSF architecture, we have also devised a new architecture called the Non-Scheduled Fabric (NSF), with the following key features:

• Based on shallow-buffer OCP Ethernet switches.
• Delivers low round-trip latency.
• Supports adaptive routing for effective load-balancing, ensuring optimal utilization and minimizing congestion.
• Serves as foundational building block for Gigawatt-scale AI clusters like Prometheus.

New OCP Switch Platforms for Next-Generation AI Fabrics

Last year, Meta introduced two new 51T Ethernet switches: Minipack3 (based on Broadcom Tomahawk5) and Cisco 8501 (based on Cisco Silicon One G200). These OCP switches offer 51.2 Tbps (64x OSFP ports), are power-efficient without the need for retimers, and run our large-scale network operating system, FBOSS. These platforms have served as the foundation for building our next-generation frontend and backend data center fabrics. 

This year, we are introducing Minipack3N, a new 51T Ethernet switch that is based on the NVIDIA Spectrum-4 switching ASIC and leverages the same system design as Minipack3.

Evolving FBOSS and SAI for DSF and NSF

Meta continues to embrace OCP-SAI as the foundation for onboarding new network fabrics, switch hardware platforms, and optical transceivers into FBOSS. Through close collaboration with vendors and the OCP community, we have evolved SAI to support advanced features and concepts, including DSF, NSF, and other enhanced routing schemes tailored for modern data center and AI workloads.

This open approach empowers developers and engineers worldwide to engage with cutting-edge hardware, contribute innovative software, and leverage these solutions for their own needs. By sharing advancements and fostering collaboration, we help accelerate progress across the industry, ensuring that open hardware and software remain at the heart of scalable, efficient, and future-ready data center infrastructure.

Optics: 2x400G FR4-LITE and 400G/2x400G DR4 Optics for 400G/800G Optical Interconnections

Last year, Meta introduced 2x400G FR4 BASE (3-km) optics, the primary solution supporting next-generation 51T platforms across both backend and frontend networks and DSFs. These optics have now been widely deployed throughout Meta’s data centers. 

This year, we are expanding our portfolio with the launch of 2x400G FR4 LITE (500-m) optics. Developed as part of an efficiency initiative, FR4 LITE is optimized for the majority of intra–data center use cases, supporting fiber links up to 500 meters. This new variant is designed to accelerate optics cost reduction while maintaining robust performance for shorter-reach applications.

In addition, we are introducing the 400G DR4 OSFP-RHS optics — our first-generation DR4 solution for AI host-side NIC connectivity. Complementing this, the new 2x400G DR4 OSFP optics are being deployed on the switch side, providing connectivity from host to switch.

Ethernet for Scale-Up Networking in OCP: Meta’s Industry Leadership

At Meta, we recognize that the future of AI and data center infrastructure depends on open, scalable, and interoperable networking solutions. As part of our ongoing commitment to open hardware and industry collaboration, Meta is a founding participant in the new Ethernet for Scale-Up Networking (ESUN) initiative, which launched within OCP at the 2025 OCP Global Summit.

What Is ESUN?

ESUN is a new workstream within the OCP Networking Project. It functions as an open technical forum where industry operators and leading vendors can collaborate to advance the use of Ethernet technology. The specific goal of ESUN is to leverage and adapt the mature Ethernet ecosystem to meet the unique, high-performance demands of the scale-up domain within modern AI systems.

ESUN is focused specifically on the network functionality aspect of scale-up systems. The workstream is designed to address the technical challenges related to how data traffic is managed and transmitted across network switches. This includes defining best practices and standards for:

• Protocol headers
• Error handling mechanisms
• Achieving lossless data transfer across the network

The initiative brings together operators, vendors, and standards bodies to:

• Collaborate on Ethernet solutions tailored for scale-up networking.
• Focus on Ethernet framing and switching layers to ensure robust, lossless, and error-resilient multi-hop topologies.
• Align with open standards by working closely with organizations like UEC and IEEE.

Meta’s Contributions to ESUN

Meta is proud to be among the initial group of OCP members driving ESUN, alongside industry leaders that includes: AMD, Arista, ARM, Broadcom, Cisco, HPE, Marvell, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, OpenAI, and Oracle. 

Our contributions include:

• Technical leadership in defining the requirements for ESUN in AI clusters.
• Open collaboration with vendors and standards bodies to ensure that solutions are interoperable and not tied to proprietary technologies.
• Sharing best practices and lessons learned from deploying advanced Ethernet fabrics in Meta’s own data centers., 

An Industry Invitation: Join the Open Future

Driving progress in AI requires data center infrastructure that delivers more than just scale — it must also be flexible, efficient, and sustainable. At Meta, we envision a future where AI hardware systems are not only highly scalable, but also open and collaborative, enabling rapid innovation and adaptation to evolving workloads.

We invite engineers, developers, and industry partners to join us and the OCP community in shaping the next generation of networking hardware for AI. By working together and sharing ideas, we can accelerate the development of open, future-ready AI infrastructure that benefits the entire industry and supports the demands of tomorrow’s technologies.

Countries today face a fundamental challenge: how to grow their economies and meet development goals without repeating the planet-warming patterns of the past.

Historically, rapid economic growth has come at the cost of high greenhouse gas emissions. As the world works to secure a stable climate and safe future, decoupling the two is essential — particularly for emerging economies in places like southeast Asia, where energy demand and emissions are rising fast.

This challenge comes into sharp focus in Indonesia, which stands at a defining moment. Southeast Asia’s largest economy and the world’s fourth-most-populous country has two ambitious goals: to grow its GDP 8% per year by 2029 and reach net-zero emissions by 2060.

These objectives may seem to be at odds — and if the country continues on its current fossil-powered trajectory, they are. But this isn’t the only way.

New WRI research shows that Indonesia can achieve both climate and economic goals if it doubles down on clean energy and energy efficiency in the coming years. While the upfront investment is significant, the payoff is even greater: not just lower emissions, but also millions of new jobs, stronger energy security, cleaner air and better health.

These findings align with a growing body of research that shows climate action can grow economies while improving lives globally. Indonesia now has the opportunity to demonstrate that, with the right policies and decisive action, clean energy can be key to a more prosperous future.

Modeling a Path to Green Growth

At present, Indonesia’s energy needs are largely met by fossil fuels: 36% of its power came from coal and 26% from oil in 2023. Raising GDP 8% per year by 2029 would massively ramp up demand, particularly as the government prioritizes energy-intensive industries such as nickel, iron and steel. Meeting this growing demand with the country’s current carbon-intensive power mix risks rapidly driving up emissions.

In parallel to its economic goals, Indonesia has set out plans to shift away from fossil energy and toward clean power. Its latest Electricity Supply Business Plan (Rencana Usaha Penyediaan Tenaga Listrik, or RUPTL) aims to expand renewable power to 34.3% of the total power mix by 2034. The country is also part of a Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), which aims to mobilize $20 billion in international finance to support this transition. However, Indonesia is not on track to meet its clean energy goals and has even revised its renewable energy targets downward in recent years.

Our research sought to answer a key question: What if the country pursued its economic goals and an ambitious energy transition in tandem?

Building on earlier modeling that informed Indonesia’s net-zero goal, we looked at what would happen if the country increased clean energy and energy efficiency as outlined under its JETP agreement. Laid out in the 2023 Comprehensive Investment and Policy Plan (CIPP), this pathway includes retiring two fossil fuel power plants by 2035; achieving 34% renewable energy by 2030; and implementing energy efficiency measures. (These could include measures like introducing minimum energy performance standards and labeling programs that promote energy-saving appliances, and improving motor-driven factory equipment and industrial machinery to reduce power consumption.)

Under this “JETP scenario,” new clean energy and improved energy efficiency would still deliver enough power to drive 8% GDP growth per year — while also reducing emissions and avoiding the environmental, health and fiscal costs that come with fossil fuel dependence.

With continued green energy investment, power sector emissions would peak in 2034 at about 324 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) and drop to just 13.2 MtCO2e by 2050 — consistent with Indonesia’s goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2060. By contrast, under a business-as-usual scenario, power sector emissions would rise to 1.86 billion tonnes by 2050 — nearly six times what the sector emitted in 2022.

Green Investments Can Power Jobs, Health and Energy Security

Curbing emissions is critical, but it’s far from the only benefit of shifting to clean energy. Our study finds that scaling up renewables in Indonesia can help the country achieve a bevy of economic and development goals.

Clean energy investments can drive big economic returns.

Scaling up renewable energy will require significant upfront investments in new infrastructure, such as wind turbines, solar farms and battery storage systems. However, the anticipated returns make this spend worthwhile. Our research shows that renewable energy investments in Indonesia can deliver a projected return of $1.41 billion for every $1 billion invested.

The more Indonesia invests in renewables, the more it will generate demand — and thereby additional investment — for them. This can create new value chains for the installation and maintenance of renewable energy systems, spurring significant job creation and contributing to GDP gains.

In addition, upfront deployment costs would be offset in the long term by the much lower operation and maintenance costs of renewable facilities compared to fossil fuel plants. And a greater supply of renewables can generate additional economic returns by keeping workers healthier and more productive through cleaner air.

International partners under Indonesia’s JETP will help provide early financial support for this infrastructure. But the total investment required to meet the country’s targets far exceeds the $20 billion committed under the partnership, meaning the country will need to secure significant additional funding in the near-term from the government, private sector and international sources.

The transition can create millions of new jobs.

In 2024, Indonesia had 15.1 gigawatts of renewable energy installed. According to our model, JETP investments are projected to lead to an additional 52.2 GW of on-grid renewable power and transmission infrastructure by 2030. This massive build-out would create 383,000 new jobs in the energy sector this decade, including roles such as solar panel installers and wind turbine technicians.

Looking further ahead, the country could add almost 1 million total jobs in renewable energy construction and another 1.8 million in power generation by 2050. These would come from the scale up of not just wind and solar, but also hydropower, geothermal and nuclear power plants by 2034, as well as the introduction of green hydrogen in 2040.

While the net job gains are huge, this transition would also see 51,300 workers displaced from fossil fuel plants. Reskilling programs will be critical to help these workers transition into new, green job opportunities.

Shifting away from fossil fuels can bolster energy security.

Indonesia’s domestic oil production has been in decline since 1997, increasing the country’s reliance on imported oil to meet national energy demand. This is at odds with the country’s goal of becoming more energy independent, as imported fossil fuels are vulnerable to global price shocks and supply disruptions. It’s also expensive: In 2024 alone, Indonesia spent over US$36 billion on imported crude oil and natural gas.

Shifting to renewable energy would help lower this import dependence. In our JETP scenario, oil imports drop significantly as renewables scale up, saving 1.23 million barrels per day by 2050. In addition to limiting exposure to international market risks, this shift would free up public resources previously spent on oil imports and fossil fuel subsidies — funds that could be redirected to domestic energy infrastructure and other development priorities.

Moreover, increased reliance on clean electricity as opposed to fossil fuels could expedite the shift to electric transportation; a transition already well underway, with ambitions to electrify 90% of urban mass public transport by 2030 under the country’s National E-Mobility Plan. This would further reduce the need for imported oil.

Cleaner power means better health.

Fossil fuel power plants emit harmful pollutants, including fine particulate matter and nitrogen oxides. These contribute to air pollution-related illnesses, such as asthma, pneumonia, lung cancer and tuberculosis, often with fatal results. Air pollution accounted for close to 10% of all deaths in Indonesia in 2021, claiming over 222,000 lives. This places it among the five countries (alongside China, India, Pakistan and Nigeria) that together account for 60% of air pollution-related deaths globally. The problem is so severe in Jakarta that, in 2021, residents sued then-President Joko Widodo and other top officials over harmful air quality — and won.

Air pollution also takes a financial toll. Each case of acute respiratory illness in Indonesia carries an economic cost of roughly IDR 570,000 (about US$34), according to the national health insurance system. Between 2016 and 2021, this cost the country more than IDR 341 billion (about US$21 million) in total. Meanwhile, lost workdays from illnesses reduce overall productivity.

Renewable energy deployment would significantly reduce dangerous air pollution, lowering healthcare costs and increasing workforce productivity. Our model shows that meeting Indonesia’s clean energy goals could save an estimated 62,000 lives per year, compared with business as usual.

Turning Projections into Reality

Taken together, these wide-ranging benefits show that decisive climate action is not just about avoiding risks — it is about seizing opportunities to grow sustainably and improve people’s lives. But urgency is paramount. Indonesia and other countries need to move swiftly to scale up clean energy and energy efficiency and avoid locking in costly, polluting fossil fuel infrastructure for decades to come.

The first step is raising ambition. Our analysis, based on interventions outlined in the 2023 CIPP, shows that Indonesia needs 63.5 gigawatts of renewable capacity by 2030 and 200 gigawatts by 2040 to meet its GDP targets via clean power. By contrast, the government’s Electricity Supply Business Plan aims for only 18.6 gigawatts by 2030 and 75 by 2040. To turn its growth and climate ambitions into reality, the government must more than double its clean energy targets.

Investing early in energy efficiency can immediately address short-term energy demand and emissions while the country works toward longer-term decarbonization. Near-term measures can include building new energy distribution infrastructure, like transmission lines or microgrids connecting Indonesia’s main islands. It can also include updating existing systems; for example, by switching to more efficient LED-based lighting systems and retrofitting windows to reduce air conditioning demand.

The biggest thrust, however, must come from rapidly expanding renewable energy and slashing reliance on fossil fuels. This will require mobilizing unprecedented clean energy investment from both the public and private sectors on top of JETP financing. It will also take significant policy change, such as cutting fossil fuel subsidies; implementing cross-sector efficiency standards to reduce energy intensity in manufacturing, transport and buildings; and upgrading grid infrastructure to integrate variable renewable energy sources.

Lighting the Way Ahead

While our study focuses on Indonesia, the implications are global. Many developing and emerging economies are at a similar crossroads, working to expand energy access and grow rapidly without exacerbating climate risks — and to ensure that the transition leaves no one behind.

This research offers compelling evidence that a clean energy transition is not an obstacle to growth, but a catalyst for it. By aligning ambitious growth targets with decisive clean energy strategies, countries can take the first step toward unlocking sustainable prosperity.