Hyundai Mobis takes CSR activities beyond borders

Hyundai Mobis, South Korea’s largest auto parts manufacturer, is stepping up efforts to extend its CSR programme beyond its national borders.

The company is the “parts and service” arm of the South Korean automakers Hyundai Motor Company and (Hyundai-owned) Kia Motors and reckoned the world’s sixth largest automotive supplier. Mobis has 27 overseas branches, mainly in the USA, China, India, Europe, and Australia and is currently building new plants in China, Mexico and the Czech Republic. Total sales in 2014 were KRW 36,185 Billion.

Since 2010, Hyundai Mobis’ CSR activities have centred on the “four movements.” The Safe Movement hands out transparent umbrellas to reduce child traffic accidents. The Green Movement aims to create more green areas. Through the Happy Movement, Mobis runs engineering classes for children. In 2014, it developed the Easy Movement to support transportation for disabled children.
Beginning with China, the company is now extending CSR activities to other nations, aiming to help resolve social issues across its global markets.

In China, where some 10,000 children die in traffic accidents every year, Hyundai Mobis has a campaign for children’s traffic safety during which the company distributes transparent umbrellas.

The umbrellas have a light-reflecting trim for better visibility on rainy nights and incorporate an emergency whistle.

The campaign, which started in Korea in 2010 with 100,000 umbrellas, has now spread to China. In June 2014, the company distributed 25,000 umbrellas in Jiangsu and Beijing. This May, the company handed out a further 15,000 umbrellas in Beijing. It plans to distribute 27,000 umbrellas elsewhere in China this year.

Hyundai Mobis is also holding junior engineering classes in China to give children help in developing skills at an early age.
Beginning with the Jiangsu region last year, the campaign this year expanded into Beijing.

“Chinese parents are very interested in education. The demand for quality education in science is particularly high since engineers receive good pay,” says the company, explaining why it started the classes.

In June, about 160 primary school students in Beijing participated in the classes. The company will hold three additional sessions later this year and plans a further six next year.

Thirty students from Beijing Jiaotong University worked as voluntary teachers for the classes this year, where children made solar-powered cars that stop when they meet obstacles.

Mobis plans to expand its science program to other parts of China and into Europe as well.