South Korea’s LG Electronics holds first CSR meeting in China

Early July, South Korea’s LG Electronics held a meeting of advisers on corporate social responsibility in Beijing as part of a renewed commitment to more socially responsible activities at its overseas operations.

LG Electronics is part of South Korea’s LG Group. Worldwide, it ranks second (to Samsung) in sales of products such as TVs, monitors, and other domestic appliances. Total worldwide sales in 2014 were KRW 59 Trillion of which China accounted for about six percent. The company operates 12 production facilities and one marketing company in China.

In 2014, LG Group affiliates organized the China LG CSR Committee, which is led by LG Electronics, to ensure joint response efforts to specific sustainability issues and to maintain active communication channels with diverse stakeholders. As the facilitator, the China CSR Bureau develops integrated sustainability management strategies for China. It also offers CSR risk management training to CSR staff at local subsidiaries and publishes the local subsidiary’s Social Contribution Report in China.

The company has held CSR meetings in Korea and the U.S. since 2010. The Beijing event was the first of its kind, the company said.
Representatives of local civic and academic groups, including the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, attended the Beijing meeting to discuss LG’s CSR activities in China and the future direction.

Since 1999, LG Electronics has set up sisterhood relationships with six schools in four cities (Tianjin, Nanjing, Qingdao, and Chengdu), running diverse support programs for students and teachers. It also donates its electronics products as appropriate.

In partnership with local governments, the company has also joined hands to support the restoration efforts in disaster-hit regions.
From this year, the company has started publishing its sustainable management report in Chinese, together with its Korean and English versions, to communicate better with local stakeholding groups.

LG Electronics has held the CSR meeting twice a year, with the details reflected in its management activities and the sustainability report.

The company plans to extend such meetings to cover European and Latin countries in the future and to discuss a broadening range of issues.

Currently, China is South Korea’s largest trading partner, and South Korea is China’s fourth largest. South Korea emerged as the second-largest foreign investor in China in the first quarter of this year. A bilateral free trade deal is expected to grow the volume of business transacted between the two countries.