Gwangju Shinsegae Opens 'Shinsegae' for Eco-Friendly Campaign

Published 01 Nov.2023 16:51(KST)

Reducing Food Waste to Cut Carbon Emissions: 'So-Ju-Jan' Campaign

Introducing Tapeless Delivery Boxes and Other Resource Recycling Efforts

Gwangju Shinsegae Co., Ltd. (CEO Lee Dong-hoon) is attracting attention with its 'Eco-friendly Campaign,' conducted as part of its ESG activities.

Having taken the lead in eco-friendly activities such as recycling campaigns, Gwangju Shinsegae is drawing attention to whether its new campaign can raise awareness of ESG throughout the region.

Gwangju Shinsegae Opens 'Shinsegae' for Eco-Friendly Campaign

On the 1st, Gwangju Shinsegae announced that it has launched the ‘Soju Glass’ campaign aimed at reducing carbon emissions by decreasing food waste. The name ‘Soju Glass’ is derived from the first syllables of the phrase meaning ‘the main culprit damaging the precious earth is leftover food.’ The campaign has been underway since the 28th at the employee cafeteria on the basement first floor of the Gwangju Shinsegae main building.

The Gwangju Shinsegae employee cafeteria serves lunch and dinner to executives, employees, and partner company staff. To cater to individual preferences, two menu options are prepared for lunch, and salads are separately available for those who prefer vegetarian meals.

The cafeteria shows a high usage rate, with over 30,000 cumulative users per month. Gwangju Shinsegae plans to continue the Soju Glass campaign until the end of this year, aiming to continuously reduce food waste through voluntary participation of its members.

In addition to reducing leftover food, Gwangju Shinsegae is also actively engaged in everyday resource recycling.

In September, to mark Resource Circulation Day (September 6), Gwangju Shinsegae partnered with Seo-gu Office for a coffee grounds recycling campaign. The event, named ‘Alssul Keomo’ (Collecting Coffee Grounds That Are More Useful the More You Know), was held on September 14 at the Palhaksan Forest Experience Center for Children in Seo-gu.

To raise interest in eco-friendly activities, Gwangju Shinsegae created eco-friendly fertilizer and plant cultivation kits using spent coffee grounds as raw materials. By donating 100 bags of 10kg eco-friendly fertilizer to the Forest Experience Center for Children, about 1,000 children visiting the center can experience eco-friendly fertilizer firsthand. The 90 plant cultivation kits donated are also being used as educational materials for ecological experience programs.

ESG activities at the Shinsegae Group level are also drawing attention.

Since the 25th, Shinsegae Department Store has been delivering products purchased as gifts on SSG.com in eco-friendly delivery boxes. When customers purchase products through the online gifting service ‘Shinbaek Gift Hall’ on SSG.com, the items are shipped in ‘tape-less boxes’ without adhesive tape, accompanied by ‘gift cards’ made from natural paper.

The newly introduced dedicated gift delivery boxes by Shinsegae Department Store are designed to be sealed without tape. The boxes can be easily separated and recycled as is, and since there is no need to remove tape, the boxes are less likely to be damaged and can be reused. Shinsegae Department Store has been leading the establishment of an eco-friendly shopping culture, including eliminating paper flyers for the first time among department stores in 2011.

Lee Dong-hoon, CEO of Gwangju Shinsegae, said, “The ‘Soju Glass’ and ‘Alssul Keomo’ campaigns are programs designed to enable executives and employees to naturally practice eco-friendly activities in their daily lives. Gwangju Shinsegae will actively discover and implement regionally tailored eco-friendly activities befitting its status as a local corporation.”