SK Innovation, Industry's First to Conduct 'Life Cycle Assessment' for All Products

Completed LCA for Products Linked to Petrochemical Processes
Measured Environmental Impact to Establish Internal Database

SK Innovation has completed the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for all its products, becoming the first in the refining industry to do so. Through this, the company aims to meet the high ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) evaluation standards of domestic and international stakeholders and further utilize the data for process improvement.

On the 1st, SK Innovation's Environmental Science and Technology Institute announced that it has completed a comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) measuring environmental impacts across all stages of the product life cycle, a first in the refining industry. LCA is a method that quantifies various environmental impacts, such as greenhouse gas emissions throughout the entire process from resource input to finished product production, based on international standards. In January 2022, SK Innovation established a dedicated team under the Environmental Science and Technology Institute to review not only SK Innovation group products and supply chains but also the environmental impacts of new businesses. LCA quantifies and evaluates potential environmental impacts that may occur throughout the product life cycle.

This assessment covered approximately 470 petroleum-chemical related products and semi-finished products (such as gasoline, diesel, ethylene, paraxylene) produced by SK Innovation’s subsidiaries: SK Energy, SK Enmove, SK Geocentric, and SK Incheon Petrochem. Key environmental impact indicators such as carbon emissions, acidification, resource consumption, and ozone layer depletion were measured for each product to evaluate environmental burdens. Additionally, a company-wide environmental impact assessment database including LCA results was established.

SK Innovation is expanding LCA evaluations to its overseas business sites and plans to use the assessment results to respond to customers’ environmental information requests and actively support the review of environmental impacts for current and future businesses. Furthermore, the company aims to build capabilities to assess social impacts, contributing to carbon reduction and the creation of an ESG ecosystem.

To ensure higher reliability, verification is also being conducted by third-party organizations. After the Environmental Science and Technology Institute completes the LCA, each business division oversees objective and transparent verification of the LCA process and results by global certification companies such as DNV.

Lee Sung-jun, head of SK Innovation’s Environmental Science and Technology Institute, said, "By linking petrochemical processes and deriving LCA results for all products based on actual production data, we have objectively reviewed environmental impacts and established a foundation that can contribute to future carbon reduction. We will also expand our capabilities for social impact assessment and actively support the establishment of a green business portfolio for SK Innovation group."

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