SKT Divides the Entire Country into 100㎡ Units... "To Respond to Climate Change"

Publication of the 2023 TCFD Report

SK Telecom announced on the 13th that it has published the ‘2023 TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures) Report,’ which contains its response strategies to future climate change.

TCFD is an international consortium established by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in 2015 at the request of the Group of Twenty (G20). It has been urging companies worldwide to respond to climate change by presenting the ‘TCFD Recommendations,’ guidelines for climate-related information disclosure, in 2017.

SK Telecom announced on the 13th that it has published the "2023 TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures) Report," which contains response strategies for future climate change.
[Photo by SKT]

Through the ‘2023 TCFD Report,’ SKT quantitatively analyzed the impact of climate change on SKT in the transition from a high-carbon society to a low-carbon society, reflecting the requirements of the TCFD recommendations. The materiality assessment results for transition and physical risks, as well as opportunity factors, were categorized into short-term and medium-to-long-term units, providing a detailed and specific analysis of the net-zero transition path and financial impacts.

In terms of ‘Transition Risk Assessment,’ SKT comprehensively analyzed and reflected the financial impacts of electricity rate increases and emissions trading system implementation, assuming the achievement of its 2050 net-zero and RE100 targets.

Through the ‘Physical Risk Assessment,’ risk factors such as wildfires, heatwaves, and heavy rain (flooding), which could affect all telecommunications equipment nationwide including base stations and repeaters, were analyzed on a yearly basis from 2020 to 2050. The report also proposed measures to enhance the company’s monitoring and emergency response capabilities.

SKT operates a disaster recovery system to ensure the stability of communication networks in the event of disasters and continuously strengthens its ability to restore communication quality during emergencies. Additionally, to prepare for heavy rain (flooding) and typhoons, SKT has reinforced branch lines, installed equipment stands, and operates disaster roaming services among the three major telecom companies. To respond to wildfires, it has established measures such as installing fire-retardant covers on optical cables and placing firebreaks and fire prevention mats.

In the ‘Opportunity Materiality Assessment’ section, SKT described its efforts to enhance climate change adaptation capabilities by utilizing AI and ICT technologies to advance service operations and use energy sources that reduce carbon emissions.

In 2022, SKT comprehensively analyzed the impact of future climate change on telecommunications infrastructure using the ‘Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP)’ provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which analyzes the global impact of human activities. RCP is a scenario that predicts greenhouse gas concentrations based on radiative forcing caused by human activities, considering whether climate change policies are implemented.

In this TCFD report, SKT became the first in the domestic telecommunications industry to utilize the ‘Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP)’ scenario reflected in the IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report to evaluate the physical risks that climate change could pose to telecommunications equipment by 2050. Furthermore, SKT developed its own model that subdivides the entire country into 100m by 100m units for analyzing the physical risks to wired and wireless telecommunications equipment and office buildings nationwide.

SKT has been actively practicing ESG management, including becoming the first in the telecommunications industry to join RE100 in 2020. These achievements have been externally recognized, earning SKT the ‘Leadership A’ rating for two consecutive years since 2022 from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a global ESG evaluation index.

Lee Junho, Head of ESG Promotion at SK Telecom, stated, “We will strive to enhance our climate risk mitigation capabilities to respond to future extreme climate changes and establish ourselves as a trusted company for customers and partners by integrating various eco-friendly technologies based on ICT.”

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