SK Ecoplant passes industry-first carbon reduction target verification

South Korea's construction and engineering company SK Ecoplant Co. said on Thursday that it has passed the greenhouse gas reduction target verification of the "Science-based Targets initiative" (SBTi) for the first time in the industry.

SBTi is a global alliance organization that verifies companies' greenhouse gas reduction goals based on scientific evidence.

The organization was jointly established by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), the World Resources Institute (WRI), and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in 2015 to implement the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. It has 4,500 corporate members to date.

This is the first time in which a Korean construction company has been verified by SBTi for its greenhouse gas reduction target. SK Ecoplant submitted its reduction target to SBTi in July last year and recently passed verification.

The recently verified reduction target is an intermediate one by 2030 and corresponds to Scopes 1 to 3. According to this target, direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions (Scopes 1 and 2) will be reduced by 42% against 2021, and total external emissions (Scope 3) will also be reduced by 25%.

Scopes 1 and 2 are emissions that a company directly emits carbon during the business process or indirectly causes carbon emissions, such as the use of electricity. Scope 3 refers to the total amount of emissions from the life cycle of purchased goods, services, and final output such as buildings.

"We promoted the verification for a more objective and realistic assessment of our net zero plan and we plan to submit a long-term goal by 2040 in the future," said Lee Seong-nyeo, an executive in charge of ESG promotion at SK Ecoplant.

Write to Ik-Hwan Kim at lovepen@hankyung.com