Since 2022, when SK Square released its social value creation performance, the company has been found to have posted lackluster results in environmental performance for three consecutive years without making efforts to improve.
According to SK Square's sustainability report on the 3rd, the company's environmental performance within its social value results was tallied at -79 million won in 2022, -70 million won in 2023, and -100 million won in 2024.
The sustainability management report is the outcome of ESG (environment, social, governance) activities that SK Group releases to implement ESG management. Social value is broadly divided into △ "indirect economic contribution performance," which means indirect contributions to the economy through corporate activities such as employment, dividends, and taxes; △ "social performance," which refers to improving labor conditions, including the supply of products and services and co-prosperity; and △ "environmental performance," which is created by the impact of processes such as greenhouse gases through the development, production, and sale of eco-friendly products and services. SK Square's overall social value performance, spanning the three institutional sectors, rose to 149.8 billion won in 2022, 387.4 billion won in 2023, and 653.7 billion won in 2024. However, among the three institutional sectors, environmental performance has not improved since the evaluation was made public.
For environmental performance, it is realistically difficult to achieve a plus when using buildings or power infrastructure with factors such as greenhouse gases, waste, and water. However, experts said efforts should be made to reduce these as much as possible. SK hynix, a subsidiary of SK Square, sharply reduced its environmental performance deficit from -1.0423 trillion won in 2022 to -783.5 billion won in 2023. It then recorded -809.7 billion won in 2024.
SK Square's environmental management training hours also plunged from 55.1 hours in 2022 to 30.3 hours in 2024. Some say SK Square's efforts are lacking in environmental performance, which has been obscured by indirect economic contribution performance and social performance.
An SK Square official said, "Subsidiary evaluations are not reflected in the environmental performance evaluation; instead, water, waste, greenhouse gases, and other factors generated at T Tower, SK Square's building located on Eulji-ro in Jung-gu, Seoul, are compiled, scored, and converted into monetary value," and added, "Unlike the sustainability management report, actual environmental performance improved from -79.64 million won in 2022 to -69.34 million won in 2023 and -66.43 million won in 2024, and we expect it to get better this year as well." The point is that, as an intermediate holding company of a group that invests in corporations in the semiconductor and ICT (information and communications technology) fields rather than directly running a business, there are limits to improving environmental performance.
Ryu Young-jae, CEO of the ESG rating agency Sustinvest, said, "Excluding subsidiary evaluations from the environmental assessment shows no interest in environmental performance at all, and that is not genuine ESG," adding, "Even if it does not operate businesses directly, the genuine environmental performance of an intermediate holding company is to exert influence so that subsidiaries in which it holds equity deliver environmental results."