Woori Financial, WWF co-host circular economy conference

Woori Financial Group Vice President Park Jong-il, fourth from left, poses with other key participants during a conference co-hosted by the banking group and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) at The Plaza Seoul hotel on Tuesday. Courtesy of Woori Financial Group

By Yi Whan-woo

Woori Financial Group, jointly with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), hosted a conference on circular economy in Seoul in line with the international green campaign, the lender said Wednesday.

The circular economy refers to a concept that gives incentives to reusing products, rather than discarding them and then extracting new resources.

The concept is observed by the United Nations and other non-profit organizations including the WWF, the largest international conservation organization.

The conference took place at The Plaza Seoul hotel in central Seoul, Tuesday, attracting more than 120 participants from both Korea and abroad.

Among them were Woori Financial Group Vice President Park Jong-il, WWF-Korea Executive Director Hong Yoon-hee, as well as officials from the U.N. Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and the Korea Environment Institute (KEI).

The conference centered on three topics ― the definition of a circular economy, prerequisites for a global shift to a circular economy and corresponding business measures to be taken toward creating a circular economy.

In a welcoming speech, Park underlined that recycling resources are equally important as using fewer resources and energy as a part of climate action and environmental protection.

“Hopefully this conference lays the groundwork for parties of different understanding to take shared responsibility on the path toward a circular economy,” Park said.

A UNEP FI official called finance companies “a locomotive for the circular economy” and urged them to speed up efforts for sustainable development.

Woori Financial Group was lauded for being the only Korean finance company to join the UNEP FI-led working group aimed at developing guidelines on the circular economy. The working group includes Barclays, BNP Paribas, ABN Amro, all multinational finance companies.