NongHyup Financial strengthens ESG vision

NongHyup Financial Group Chairman Son Hyun-hwan stressed the importance of the environmental element out of the so-called environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) management principles, urging group subsidiaries to better cope with the challenges caused by climate change.

NongHyup Financial announced Thursday that it held its Social Value and Green Finance Committee meeting the day before, which is the financial group’s supreme governance body where ESG management strategies and action plans are examined and discussed.

“As the importance of the environmental factor of ESG has grown, the group needs to raise its capacity addressing challenges posed by climate change to a global level,” group chairman Son said during the committee meeting.

“The group aims to pursue comprehensive green and sustainable finance from a business perspective, beyond a simple concept of ESG management,” he added.

During the meeting, the chairman called on the group to strengthen its ESG management capacity, with a vision to transform the current crisis from climate change into an opportunity. NongHyup Financial Group proclaimed its long-term vision in March this year. The group aims to achieve carbon neutrality by year 2050. Under the vision, the group has been active in joining various international agreements on green sustainability, including the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) and the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). The group plans to set up a concrete timeline to achieve its carbon neutral goals by the end of this year.

The group has been active in the area of ESG management since last year, ranging from joining international pacts, increasing its ESG-related investment products to publishing ESG reports.

During Wednesday’s committee meeting, the group also carried out an interim report on the group’s implementation of tasks laid out for supporting the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). The group announced its support for TCFD in October last year.