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| Representatives from companies that were selected by Statista as "Korea's Sustainability Leaders 2022" pose during an award ceremony at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry headquarters in Seoul, Wednesday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
By Park Jae-hyuk
A group of Korean companies selected as sustainability leaders by Statista, a German market research firm, were honored during an award ceremony hosted jointly by The Korea Times and its sister paper, the Hankook Ilbo, Wednesday.
The event was a follow-up to the "Korea's Sustainability Leaders 2022" report, which was announced earlier this month by Statista to honor companies that excelled in performing environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) practices.
The globally-renowned research firm worked with The Korea Times and the Hankook Ilbo to conduct the research to determine which companies are leaders in terms of their ESG campaigns.
Thomas Clark, a partner at Statista, congratulated the award winners for their excellent performance in sustainability and ESG practices via a pre-recorded speech at the event, which took place at the Korea Chamber of Commerce headquarters in Seoul.
"Once upon a time, it was enough for a company to simply be good in terms of profitability and in terms of growing revenue. Obviously, in the 21st century, that has changed," said Clark. "This has changed because it's important that we take care of the environment and that we are a good neighbor, and that we take care of how our company is actually run."
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| Thomas Clark, a senior partner at Statista, speaks in a pre-recorded speech sent from Berlin to participants in the award ceremony for "Korea's Sustainability Leaders 2022" at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry headquarters in Seoul, Wednesday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
Some 50 representatives from Korean companies, including Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, Hyundai Motor and LG Electronics, attended the ceremony to receive the prestigious awards.
In selecting the 100 ESG leaders, Statista's analysts checked the 1,250 largest Korean companies in terms of revenue in all industry fields, analyzing their publicly available key performance indicators, derived from corporate annual reports and ESG reports.
The massive analytical effort was then complemented by an online survey of more than 3,000 Korean consumers of their opinions of specific Korean companies in terms of their sustainability efforts.
"In collaboration with a foreign research firm, we enabled Korean companies to be evaluated properly under the global standard," said Oh Young-jin, the president-publisher of The Korea Times. "We've introduced the result here and overseas, so that BlackRock and others can take this into account, when making decisions on their investments."
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| The Korea Times President-Publisher Oh Young-jin speaks during the award ceremony for "Korea's Sustainability Leaders 2022" at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry headquarters in Seoul, Wednesday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
Hyosung Advanced Materials stood atop the overall list in the environmental field, scoring the maximum of 100 points. In the social category, Korea Gas Corp. led the pack, also with 100 points. In the governance category, LG Innotek topped the list, also scoring 100.
