Silicon chips are the backbone of the ongoing green revolution, but in the short term, there are no easy ways to create semiconductors that are both cost-effective and sustainable. A December 2023 Fortune article written by Rakesh Kumar, a professor at the University of Illinois,touches on the increasing level of pressure being placed on the semiconductor industry for its negative environmental impact. At the COP27, a Semiconductor Climate Consortium was formed which pledged to reduce the overall emissions of the industry to 0% by the year 2050. This pledge was deemed necessary due to the significant amount of energy and water used in the production of chips, which has led to issues such as water shortages and contamination in various regions, including in Taiwan. The recent shortage highlighted the global reliance on this industry, especially in areas such as national security, and made economists, politicians and investors around the world more aware of the need to improve and safeguard the sustainability of their manufacture moving forward. Much of the current focus is on emissions, but the chip industry produces only 0.1 to 0.2% of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions globally. This is a relatively small percentage when compared to the large economic impact they have. Kumar points out that since the chip building process has been developed and almost perfected over years for efficiency, replacing parts of the process with more sustainable options would require large sums of money with the possibility of a downgrade in the resultant product. This article opened my eyes to the fact that while more sustainable options may be out there for certain industries, they are often not easily obtainable without trade-offs elsewhere.