SK chief urges reaching carbon-free goal sooner

SK Group Chairman Chey Taewon called on his company’s affiliates to speed up their timing for achieving carbon neutrality, the group said, Wednesday.

It said Chey made the comments at a mid-year meeting with the CEOs of the affiliates, Tuesday, to review their business performances during the first half.

The CEOs who attended the meeting issued a joint resolution vowing to bring the capabilities of all affiliates together to achieve carbon neutrality prior to 2050, which is a deadline set by the United Nations.

“Net-zero emissions is not a matter of choice. It is about a matter of competitiveness,” the chairman was quoted as saying in a press release.

He forecast the global price of carbon, a cost applied to carbon pollution to encourage polluters to reduce their amount of greenhouse gases, to climb faster than expected.

Roughly translated as “expanded business management conference,” 30 management officials attended the annual meeting, including SK Discovery Vice Chairman Chey Chang-won and SK Supex Council Chairman Cho Dae-sik.

Chey stressed that SK, the country’s

third-largest conglomerate, has been at the forefront of the environmental awareness campaign here. He listed hydrogen energy, large-capacity batteries and other eco-friendly businesses that are being pursued as next growth engines.

SK is also implementing “RE100,” a global campaign that calls for companies to meet their entire electricity demand with renewable energy

such as wind and solar power by 2050.

Under the joint resolution by their CEOs, the SK affiliates will seek to expand the use of renewable energy sources and make investments to reduce greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, ozone and nitrous oxide.

Specifically, they were assigned to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 by 35 percent of the amount emitted

in 2020 and 85 percent by 2040.

As an ideal reference toward the initiatives, affiliates will take into account SK Materials, the industrial gas manufacturing arm of SK Group that set the goal of net-zero emissions by 2030.

Other firms will set up their respective goals, with smaller, interim aims every 10 years, and will share the level of progress with one another.