Hello, I’m Oh Jeong-hwa from Sustainability Management Division at Amorepacific. I am an environmental engineer by training and joined Amorepacific as a member of the Environment Safety Team in 1996. South Korean companies had just started hiring Environmental Engineering majors in the early 1990s, and I was responsible for the ISO 14001 certification process and the End of Pipe solution, referring to the follow-up procedure for environmental pollutants. Ever since, my environmental specialty has broadened to include eco-friendly design, plastic strategies, as well as carbon neutral roadmaps.

In 2008, I transferred to the Management Strategy Team to support the company’s establishment of sustainability management strategies, now referred to as ESG. I was given charge of building an overall set of strategies for Amorepacific’s social responsibility, as well as disclosing, assessing these strategies both internally and externally. I can still vividly remember working with each of the relevant divisions to set up Amorepacific’s own fair-trade system named the Aritaun purchase system as well as the standards for sustainable products, to introduce the Green Cycle System, an empty bottle collection campaign, and to publish the industry’s first ever sustainability report.

In 2020, the scope of my work widened to include CSR activities and I became more conscious of the efforts Amorepacific has to make for society. Currently, I am planning a new social contribution program.

Many people are now familiar with the term ESG and its significance. As such, now, when I tell people ‘I’m in charge of ESG efforts,’ they understand the significance of this work. This is a big and wonderful change from when I began my career, when I had a difficult time explaining to people what I do because the concept of sustainable management was still very new. Now it almost feels as if I was standing still and then a snowstorm suddenly came my way. I have to admit that the importance of ESG efforts puts a huge burden on my shoulders, but despite the pressure, I am grateful for the opportunity and I would more than recommend this work to others.

The Sustainability Management Division consists of three teams: the Sustainability Innovation Team, Environmental Strategy Team, and the CSR Team. All three teams work to enhance the non-financial performance of Amorepacific. In particular, each team is doing its utmost in their area of expertise to contribute to the 2030 A MORE Beautiful Promise, the sustainability management goal Amorepacific announced in June, 2021.

The Sustainability Innovation Team designs company-level sustainability management strategies that account for the Environment (E), Society (S), and Governance (G) and implements those strategies in short- and long-term projects. It collects the non-financial performance data of the entire group to share it with relevant internal and external stakeholders, on top of responding to corporate assessments that many global investment institutions take into account. Another component of the team’s role is to expand these sustainable management efforts from the headquarters to the company’s entire supply chain and its overseas offices.

The Environmental Strategy Team is responsible for analyzing the environmental risks and opportunities that arise from our business activities and establishing strategies accordingly. The team’s recent area of focus has been climate change and resource recirculation. The team’s efforts, which include decreasing company-wide energy consumption and increasing the use of renewable energy, are tailored towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions and building strategies to achieve carbon neutrality. In addition, the team strives to accelerate our transformation into a resource-recirculating society by using less plastic in packaging, promoting the use of recycled materials, increasing recyclability, enhancing water use efficiency, and reducing landfill waste.

 
Finally, the CSR Team is responsible for addressing social issues, such as gender and youth affairs. Before the pandemic, the team’s line of work was concentrated towards providing support for the socially vulnerable and promoting women’s health. The list now includes responding to newly emerging social issues that stem from the drastically changing society following the pandemic. The team endeavors to expand its social influence by contributing towards a society that endorses global diversity, inclusion, and equity benchmarks.

The indicators showing the severity of climate change recorded an all-time high, according to the 2021 Global Climate Status Report, which was published by the World Meteorological Organization in May. Not only has the greenhouse gas concentration reached 413.2 ppm, a 149% increase from that of pre-industrialization, but the ocean heat wave has also reached a new high. In addition to an unprecedented level of ocean acidification, the sea level has been rising at an annual average of 4.5mm, threatening to submerge coastal cities around the world, including New York and Venice, as well as some low-lying nations, including Bangladesh and the Netherlands. The climate crisis is here and now, standing at our very front doors.

In that regard, the pressing need to address carbon neutrality to ‘coexist responsibly with nature’ outweighs all other important promises outlined in the A MORE Beautiful Promise in 2021. Amorepacific hopes to minimize greenhouse gas emissions in the entire process, from raw material supply, production, distribution, all the way to disposal. This is a demanding challenge, but one that we must pursue.

We thought about where we could begin. Converting the electricity used in production into renewable energy was something Amorepacific could do first and foremost. After joining the global RE100 Campaign in March last year, Amorepacific increased its renewable power usage from 5% to 18% as of 2021, and is on track to achieve 35% this year. As a part of our resolution, we became the first company in South Korea to sign a direct renewable-energy-supply contract in March. This partnership with SK E&S is expected to become a stepping stone towards our goal of producing products 100% with renewable energy in all of Amorepacific’s s by 2025, including even non-manufacturing sites, such as our headquarters, research institutes, and sales offices.

Company-level efforts are important, but so are the small yet meaningful efforts made at home. Getting rid of all plastic and achieving carbon neutrality aren’t things that are going to happen overnight. But they do need to start somewhere: from saving the water and energy we consume at work, using water bottles instead of disposable cups, to making eco-friendly purchases. All these practices that we can start right now will eventually contribute to carbon emission reduction.

All of us at Amorepacific should start practicing even the smallest things as we move towards a more sustainable future. When these small practices build up and are blended into product development, their values and mission will in turn be delivered to our customers. That butterfly effect will lead to a more sustainable future for the earth and humankind.