Son Byunghwan, Chairman of NongHyup Financial, Launches Full-Scale ESG Management: "ESG Directly Linked to Rural Areas and Farmers"

NongHyup Financial Group Holds First 'Social Value and Green Finance Council' Meeting

Son Byunghwan, Chairman of NongHyup Financial Group, is presiding over the 1st "NongHyup Financial Social Value and Green Finance Council" held on the 31st at the NongHyup Financial Group headquarters meeting room in Jung-gu, Seoul.

[Asia Economy Reporter Kiho Sung] “ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) management is a new paradigm, but it is not an unfamiliar path for NongHyup, so let us awaken the ‘ESG instinct’ embedded in NongHyup’s DNA.”

Son Byung-hwan, Chairman of NongHyup Financial Group, who selected ESG and digital enhancement as key tasks for this year, has embarked on full-scale ESG management.

According to NongHyup Financial on the 1st, Chairman Son chaired the group’s ESG council, the ‘Social Value and Green Finance Council,’ the day before, and began discussions to accelerate ESG promotion.

Chairman Son urged active support for affiliates through strengthening execution capabilities, expanding information sharing and publicity, and rewarding achievements, to lead and accelerate the group’s ESG initiatives.

The group also announced the social value and green finance campaign ‘Let’s Make Efforts for ESG.’ Going forward, NongHyup Financial stated that it will actively practice eco-friendly activities in employees’ daily lives internally through four slogans: ‘Let’s Make Efforts for Eco-friendly Activities,’ ‘Let’s Make Efforts to Reduce Carbon Emissions,’ ‘Let’s Make Efforts for Social Contribution,’ and ‘Let’s Make Efforts for Sharing and Donation.’ Each affiliate reported establishing detailed implementation plans to pursue the ‘5 ESG sectors and 15 ESG tasks’ more concretely and systematically.

Chairman Son referred to a recent good example from a chicken restaurant and predicted, “The level of a company’s ESG management will be a factor determining customers’ consumption decisions, and this phenomenon will expand to financial products as well.”

He also emphasized that ESG is directly connected to rural areas and farmers. Chairman Son said, “Environment (E) is the natural green foundation for agriculture and farmers, Social (S) is the target of value enhancement through NongHyup’s business, and Governance (G) is the identity of NongHyup, where farmers are the owners,” reiterating that “ESG is a very important factor for NongHyup.”

Considering the great interest of employees in ‘ESG management,’ the meeting also included a lecture titled ‘ESG Management and Investment of Financial Companies’ by Shin Jin-young, President of the Korea Corporate Governance Service.

Meanwhile, on the same day, NongHyup Financial accelerated the strengthening of the group’s ESG management expertise by appointing Lee Mi-kyung, CEO of the Environmental Foundation and an expert in environment and renewable energy (E), as a new outside director through the general shareholders’ meeting resolution, and NongHyup Bank appointed Ok Kyung-young, Professor of Consumer Economics at Sookmyung Women’s University and an expert in consumer protection (S), as a new outside director.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.