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| SK Group Vice President Kwon Key-joon speaks during the 2021 Korea Times Global ESG Forum at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) in Seoul, Friday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
By Lee Min-hyung
SK Group has called for the need to set up environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) criteria, as more and more investors here and abroad are viewing the fulfillment ESG principles as a crucial de-risking factor when assessing company valuation.
“Establishing standard ESG evaluation criteria will help companies improve their ESG performance down the road,” SK Group Vice President Kwon Key-joon said during a panel discussion of The Korea Times Global ESG Forum in Seoul, Friday.
Such criteria will enable firms to keep track of the positive and negative impacts of their business activities in more detail.
“Against the backdrop, SK Group is seeking to enhance our corporate value by reinforcing ESG risk management, thereby setting up more innovative, ESG-focused business models,” he said.
SK Group also underlined its participation in the Value Balancing Alliance (VBA). SK is a founding member company of the non-profit organization, set up in 2019 by a group of eight international firms, with a view to creating a standardized management accounting model for a sustainable future. As of September of this year, a total of 26 global companies were taking part in the alliance to build a standardized ESG measurement system.
“We are working on the standardization of such criteria, and it cannot be done by a single company in Korea, but must be done by many companies across the world,” he said.
SK Group is one of the nation’s conglomerates most active in the ESG area, applying its own ESG measurement system to all of its affiliates. SK recently said that its affiliates would achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2035.
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| SK Group Vice President Kwon Key-joon, center, speaks during a panel discussion of the 2021 Korea Times Global ESG Forum at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) in Seoul, Friday. From the left are Korea Times President-Publisher Oh Young-jin, Kwon and Shinhan Financial Group Deputy President Park Sung-hyun. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, in particular, stands at the center of the group-wide ESG drive, stressing the need for its affiliates to transform their business models in a way to develop state-of-the-art technologies for the group to achieve carbon-free status even earlier.
Formerly known as “SK Global Chemical,” the company recently changed its corporate name to “SK Geo Centric,” showing its willingness to fulfill its social and environmental responsibility by becoming an eco-friendly materials company with its focus on plastic waste recycling. The firm recently shared its vision of drastically changing its business model and becoming a global top-tier urban oil company from its previous status as the nation’s first petrochemical firm.
SKC, a film and chemical products manufacturer, is also widening its foothold in the eco-friendly sector by expanding a series of partnerships with other companies. In April, the SK affiliate signed a partnership with SPC, a Seoul-based food and confectionery firm, to use green packaging materials. Under the partnership, SKC supplies biodegradable film to SPC, and SPC’s food franchises will use it when packing their products.
“We are setting our target for fulfilling ESG criteria, and we will continue to motivate ourselves to meet the goal,” Kwon said. “SK also has a standard system of criteria reflecting the global trend, and based on this, we will keep working to be a global ESG leader.”
SK calls for the need to standardize ESG criteria
Source: Buhay Kapa PH
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