Gwangju Bank Signs Business Agreement with Gwangju City for 'Carbon Point Donation Bank'

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Jin-hyung] Gwangju Bank (President Song Jong-wook) announced on the 27th that it signed a business agreement for the ‘Carbon Point Donation Bank’ with Gwangju Metropolitan City at Gwangju City Hall, attended by Song Jong-wook, President of Gwangju Bank, and Lee Yong-seop, Mayor of Gwangju Metropolitan City.

The ‘Carbon Point Donation Bank’ is a system that uses the currently implemented Carbon Point System to donate sponsorship funds through Gwangju Bank and implement ESG projects.

The Carbon Point System is a program that provides incentives to Gwangju citizens by converting reductions in household electricity, water, and gas usage into points. When these points are donated to the Gwangju Community Chest of Korea through Gwangju Metropolitan City, Gwangju Bank plans to deliver sponsorship funds equivalent to the donation amount.

The citizen donations and Gwangju Bank sponsorship funds collected in this way will be used to implement the ‘Carbon Point Forest’ ESG project, which creates forests in downtown Gwangju.

At the signing ceremony, Song Jong-wook, President of Gwangju Bank, said, “Following the ‘Coal Phase-out and Green New Deal’ agreement last December, it is very meaningful to participate in realizing Gwangju Metropolitan City’s 2045 carbon-neutral city through this ‘Carbon Point Donation Bank’ agreement.” He added, “We will take the lead in ESG management to accompany local residents and coexist with the region, doing our best as the representative bank of Gwangju and Jeonnam.”

Since 2008, Gwangju Bank has been the first in the nation to implement the ‘Carbon Bank System’ together with Gwangju Metropolitan City, greatly contributing to the spread of the Carbon Point System by providing carbon points as cash or Green Card points according to household energy usage reduction performance.

In addition, in 2013, the bank launched environmentally friendly financial products such as the ‘K-Green Credit and Check Card,’ which awards carbon points (Eco Money) for practicing green living, including energy saving and purchasing green products. Recently, the labor and management jointly participated in the Ministry of Environment’s ‘K-EV100 (Korean-type Zero Emission Vehicle Transition Project)’ campaign, declaring to convert 100% of work vehicles to electric and hydrogen vehicles by 2030.

To practice ESG management, which fulfills corporate social responsibility in Environment, Social, and Governance areas, Gwangju Bank is deeply promoting ESG management strategies in various fields by focusing on inclusive finance and productive finance through the establishment of an ESG team and an ESG Promotion Committee, in addition to environmental protection.

Gwangju Bank has launched the public interest-type ESG loan product ‘ESG SUPPORT LOAN,’ which provides up to 0.4%p interest rate benefits to excellent companies practicing win-win cooperation through strengthening ESG management. It also announced plans to use funds raised by issuing 100 billion KRW worth of won-denominated ESG bonds with the highest ESG certification grade for eco-friendly projects to revitalize green finance and support local small and medium-sized enterprises and small business owners struggling due to COVID-19.

Recently, the bank launched the ‘Meongi Nyangi Savings’ that accumulates a donation of 1,000 KRW per subscriber and donates up to 10 million KRW to the nonprofit organization Gachi Bodeum, which operates the Gwangju Metropolitan City Animal Shelter. This initiative leads efforts to spread positive influence by practicing ESG management and ethical consumption together with financial consumers.

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