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2022. August VOL. 653
- 2022. August VOL. 653
- ENG
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2022. August VOL. 653
ESG management, a business policy to reinforce the assurance of various inside and outside stakeholders and aims to promote sustainable growth by taking into consideration environmental, social and governance practices in the course of business/ corporate activities.
K-water charts the path forward with ESG management by declaring ‘Water-based ESG management’, which is expected to be the backbone of public water safety and sound health on March 16, 2021. Subsequently, we established water-comprehensive clean governance designed to protect the environment and society, and took specific actions including elevating ESG awareness within the organization, instating policies, systems, and regulations and internalizing ESG practices, as part of our leading ESG management efforts in the public sector.
In order to successfully conduct water-specific ESG management, it is essential to establish business policies based on our ESG framework of ‘developing sustainable management competencies’ and ‘improving social value’, while keeping track of ESG performance.
In this vein, K-water has made strides with a total of 20 key tasks including 12 existing long-term strategic tasks and 8 new tasks. A new unit was created to handle ESG management exclusively and the ESG Management Committee was launched within the Board of Directors, the top decision-making body. Later in November, an ESG diagnosis system was rolled out and the ESG Advisory Group was formed in December. In addition, we established our ESG management principles, which serve as the code of conduct and the decision-making criteria that guide the actions of K-water employees in their jobs. The principles represent K-water’s commitment to water-based ESG management.
As a result of these efforts, K-water was rated ‘AA’, the top rating for public organizations by Sustinvest, one of the leading ESG ratings agencies in Korea and rated ‘A’ based on the criteria for publicly listed companies.
In 2022, K-water has implemented challenging follow-up measures to achieve ESG 3.0 to speed up our ESG management. To this end, K-water adopted ‘the water-energy-city and ESG’ nexus as one of our management strategies. We identified three main areas for innovation: personnel, business, and process & systems. To ensure successful innovation in these areas, we are currently implementing 9 major tasks.
For personnel innovation, the company duly strives to raise ESG awareness and improve its enforceability to encourage all employees to fully embrace the principles of ESG management. Notable, we are increasing ESG-related disclosures, overhauling our website to highlight ESG practices and creating ESG communication channels.
In addition, K-water also hold ESG contests in which all employees are encouraged to share their ideas on bottom-up implementation models and other ESG-related ideas as part of our efforts to encourage employees to get involved in ESG management.
As for business innovation, K-water will use a diagnosis system including K-ESG guidelines to examine our ESG management environment and the entire water cycle process and identify the strengths and weaknesses. We will also perform an ESG diagnosis for individual businesses and formulate action plans in order to internalize ESG practices.
For process and system innovation, the company rules and regulations will be revised from the ESG perspective to identify and change factors in the business process that may negatively affect ESG performance and to facilitate ESG management. K-water is spearheading and promoting ESG management in Korea by engaging in ESG management activities which people can relate to.
K-water’s environmental management is fueled by carbon-neutral water management that actively responds to climate change. As the No. 1 renewable energy company based on facility capacity, K-water capitalizes on our accumulated experiences and expertise in carbon reduction and the potential that water has to offer for Korea to achieve carbon neutrality nationwide.
Starting with hydro-electric power generation at the Soyang River dam in 1973, K-water has been constantly developing water-based clean energy including hydrothermal energy, floating photovoltaic power plants, and green hydrogen. Currently, we are capable of producing 1,413MW in renewable energy and generated 2,244GWh in clean energy last year, thus contributing to low-carbon energy transition.
In addition, K-water is the first company in Korea that has established a ‘2050 carbon neutrality roadmap’ in the water domain. The roadmap contains our 2050 carbon neutrality vision, carbon reduction tools & timetable, and overall direction. K-water has a plan to reduce 7.8 tons of GHG emissions by 2050, which is 9 times (888%) our 2050 emission forecast.
K-water strives in earnest to create social value and conducts social responsibility management with the goal of achieving mutual growth. Such efforts have been acclaimed with the selection of K-water as the manager of the national K-Test Bed Project.
The government launched K-Test Bed, a demonstration support program to promote technology development in the materials, parts and equipment industries and create a business startup and venture ecosystem. The government selected K-water in July as the chief lead of the project, based on the results of an evaluation which assessed demonstration support records and capacity to manage the platform and support participating organizations, among others.
K-water has provided a total 89 test beds in 2021 by making 121 water resources and water supply facilities available for the project. We created one-stop support platform that integrates all processes from demonstration to sale. Building upon the experiences of operating the water industry test beds, we plan to grow into a national test bed.
Furthermore, we set up a local venture fund or Water Industry Fund of KRW 250 billion jointly with the Ministry of SMEs and Venture Startups and local governments in the southeastern region in 2021 to support the growth of the innovative startup ecosystem in the water industry and promote balanced development between different regions. Following the successful rollouts of the Chungcheong Area Venture Fund(No. 1) and Southeast Area Venture Fund(No. 2), the Honam and Jeju Area Fund(No. 3) will be set up with the total amount of the fund to be increased to KRW 430 billion by 2025.
‘The Water Industry Investors’ Council’ was launched on April 22 to support the development of the water industry and promote the investment ecosystem. The council will stimulate investors’ interest in and access to the water industry, and help expand investment in water-related companies with good potential, thereby contributing to social value with the ultimate goal of achieving mutual growth.
Water Industry Investors’ Council was launched and the conference was held on April 22, 2022.
K-water established the operation rules for our ESG Management Committee and convened committee meetings quarterly in order to improve our ESG management enforceability and expand the application across our businesses. The ESG Management Committee was formed under the Board of Directors and acts as the control tower for K-water’s ESG management. The committee has met four times and held in-depth discussions on how to expand our ESG competency and ESG achievements this year.
K-water is the first among Group-1 Public Corporations that issues green bonds, and plans to actively invest in environmental improvement projects to facilitate green transition, and increase our ESG value and performance in the climate crisis era.
K-water’s CEO Jae-hyun Park stated, “Making people happy and safe with water is the mission that K-water always strives in earnest to achieve. We will further increase the value of water through our effective ESG management, overcome various crises, and implement policies that everyone can relate to and trust so we can do our part in making a better tomorrow.”
Floating photovoltaic power plants were installed at the Hapcheon Dam.
K-water became the first among Group-1 public corporations to declare our pledge on ESG management on March 16, 2022. 
