LG Chem CEO takes initiative on fighting climate change

Shin Hak-cheol, vice chairman and CEO of LG Chem, speaks at the World Economic Forum, Jan. 27. / Courtesy of LG Chem

By Baek Byung-yeul

• Published Jan 31, 2021 4:42 PM KST
• Updated Jan 31, 2021 6:17 PM KST

By Baek Byung-yeul

LG Chem Vice Chairman and CEO Shin Hak-cheol has been taking the initiative to make his company more environmentally friendly. He recently unveiled LG Chem's action plan to respond to climate change effectively and called on business leaders to increase their support for an integrated approach to address the issue together.

On Jan. 27, Shin took part in a discussion session at the World Economic Forum and introduced LG Chem's carbon emission reduction strategy during the forum's “Mobilizing Action on Climate Change” session. Shin was the first Korean businessman to speak about climate change response strategies at the forum, which is also known as the Davos Forum.

Introducing LG Chem's carbon neutrality goal, which aims to cap its emission level in 2050 at the 2019 level, Shin said his company is implementing three action plans ― avoid, reduce and compensate.

“Our 2050 goal calls for capping the 2050 emission level at the 2019 level or a reduction of 30 million tons of CO2 on an annual basis by 2050. To put this into perspective, 30 million tons of CO2 is equivalent to the amount of CO2 generated from 12.5 million vehicles each year or can be offset by 220 million fully grown trees,” Shin said during the discussion session.

“We knew from the beginning that the only way to make this work is to work backwards from our 2050 goal and find the way to get there, using the right-to-left approach, with a clear leadership commitment and accountability attached to each milestone. We deployed a full range of avoid, reduce and compensate tactics with specific milestones by business, by geography and by each plant site,” the CEO added.

Giving more details, he also mentioned LG Chem's Renewable Energy 100 (RE100) program in every workplace at the company, improving research and development efforts to commercialize technologies that can directly reduce carbon emissions in manufacturing processes and replacing fossil fuel-based raw ingredients with bio-based raw materials.

Shin also stressed there should be increased collective action, because the more engaged CEOs of companies around the world become, the faster and better we can respond to climate change.

“So far obviously we are still closer to the beginning than the end, but I can feel that we now have a pathway to get there. My friendly advice to my colleagues and CEOs around the world is that leadership commitment at the top is the only way to make this happen. So I propose a three-step recommendation for all CEOs and industry leaders around the world and that is to commit, operationalize and engage,” he said.

The CEO also emphasized it is essential for companies to closely collaborate with other stakeholders, such as the public sector and the people, because “it is quite obvious that industries alone cannot achieve the reduction goal.”

“Gaining access to widely available renewable energy sources at reasonable cost and the ability to purchase renewable energy directly from the source, for example, will be critically important to realize RE100. This is where the public sector and its policy regime can come into play in a big way,” Shin said.

Since announcing its sustainability goal in 2020, the company has been actively implementing five key tasks ― agile response to climate change, conversion to renewable energy, creating a resource virtuous cycle, protecting ecosystems and managing supply chains responsibly.

For the first time among Korean companies, LG Chem also unveiled its goal to push for RE100 that aims to produce only 100 percent renewable energy and use renewable energy by purchasing renewable energy sources.