[Interview] Jung Wono, Seongdong District Mayor, "Developing a Sustainable City through Expanding ESG in Residents' Daily Lives"

Seongdong-gu Realizes Sustainable Development Goals with Core ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Strategy...Fostering Seongsu-dong Social Venture Hub, Establishing Social Economy Activation Fund, Allocating 3.8 Billion KRW for Citizen Participation Budget, Focusing on Environmental Policies Including Living Labs, and Promoting Projects Like Recycling Stations to Reduce Household Waste by 50% Over 7 Years

[Asia Economy Reporter Jong-il Park] “We will make Seongdong-gu a sustainable city through an ‘ESG’ strategy.”

Jung Won-oh, Mayor of Seongdong-gu, Seoul, said in an interview with this publication, “‘ESG’ is a major issue across all sectors of society, including not only corporations but also government and local governments.”

‘ESG’ stands for Environmental (E), Social (S), and Governance (G), and is used as a core strategy and indicator emphasizing corporate social responsibility.

Mayor Jung, to lead this trend and emphasize the role of local governments, served as an advisor for the ‘Local Government Council for Preventing Gentrification and Sustainable Communities,’ which hosted three sessions of ‘ESG Online Lectures and Discussions’ last month. He explained, “Seongdong-gu has focused on the Social (S) and Governance (G) aspects of ESG and carried out various projects. We have developed Seongsu-dong as a social venture hub, established a social economy activation fund of 1.78 billion KRW, and invested 2 billion KRW in social impact, leading the nation in the social economy sector.” He continued, “Governance in local governments centers on resident participation and cooperation among community members. This year, we allocated 3.8 billion KRW for citizen participation budgets directly chosen by residents and have established a system that actively reflects residents’ decision-making processes in most policies.”

In practice, the district introduced a ‘Living Lab’ in administration, allowing residents to participate directly in policy design. A representative example is the ‘Safe School Route Living Lab’ completed earlier this year. For about three years, parents and students identified walking hazards and reinforced safety facilities to create safe routes to and from all 21 elementary schools.

Mayor Jung stated, “This year, we plan to actively promote the first ESG element, Environment (E), which has become even more important amid the climate change crisis. Our biggest goal is to reduce household waste.” In line with this, after joining the Carbon Neutral Local Government Action Alliance in July last year and declaring the ‘Local Government Resource Circulation Declaration’ in April, the district established a seven-year roadmap last month aiming to reduce household waste by 50%.

The strategy is to create a resource-circulating city based on three main policy directions: waste generation suppression, recycling rate improvement, and resident participation inducement.

In particular, the district operates a total of 100 ‘Seongdong Purumi Recycling Stations’ in residential areas across all 17 neighborhoods to increase recycling sorting rates. Mayor Jung, who personally participated in recycling sorting several times at neighborhood recycling stations alongside resource managers, said, “As a result of a three-month pilot operation at six locations last year, the recycling sorting rate improved from 43.2% to 55%.”

Additionally, the district is leading projects such as ‘Coffee Grounds Recycling,’ which converts coffee grounds from over 500 coffee shops into recycled plastic and microbial batteries; support for recycling ice packs in traditional markets; and operation of IoT smart paper pack collection bins. They have also initiated the creation of the Seongdong Eco Government Building, banned single-use items to reduce greenhouse gases, and recently started research projects to establish a carbon-neutral leading city. On the 15th of this month, they enacted and promulgated the Basic Ordinance on Sustainable Development.

Mayor Jung Won-oh said, “We will strive to establish a foundation for the spread and maturation of ESG at the local government level and enhance the city’s sustainability through concrete actions.”

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