SOUTH KOREA. Lotte Duty Free has signed a business agreement with the Commission on Shared Growth for Large and Small Companies for the 2023 Supplier ESG Support Project that seeks to support small and medium-sized (SME) partner companies.
The commission was established by private consensus-based council Korea Commission for Corporate Partnership.
Under this agreement, the retailer will contribute a total of KRW50 million (US$37,000) to the win-win cooperation fund and select key performance indicators for each company based on the SME ESG standard guidelines of its partner organisation.
After the selection, it will comprehensively support its partner companies with ESG education and consultation to help practice ESG management.
Lotte Duty Free has conducted online training with its partner companies and plans to select ten of them to provide on-site training and consulting.
Once the consultation is completed, the best-performing companies will receive a Certificate of Excellent ESG awarded by the Shared Growth for Large and Small Companies.
They will be awarded with incentives including preferential bank interest rates (Shinhan, KB Kookmin, IBK Corporation, BNK Gyeongnam). They will also receive export support service benefits from the Korea International Cooperation Agency and Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, and environment/energy consultation and technical support provided by the Korea Institute of Energy Research.
Lotte Duty Free is organising various activities with SME partners as part of its ‘win-win’ approach. The travel retailer has been conducting its monthly Open SME Counseling Day since April to help local brands enter overseas markets through its online and offline stores.
In addition, the company has established a win-win cooperation fund worth KRW50 billion (US$37 million) with IBK Industrial Bank of Korea to provide low-interest financial support to partner companies. It noted that its participation in the government’s mutual growth payment system has had a positive impact.
Lotte Duty Free CEO Kim Ju-Nam said: “We are pleased to participate in the Shared Growth Committee project for small and medium-sized suppliers.
“Lotte Duty Free will continue to carry out various activities to strengthen the competitiveness of its partners and we will strive to establish the ESG management foundation in the entire duty free industry.”
Highlighting another ESG initiative, the company established the ESG Value Pursuit Committee for the first time in the Korean duty free industry in 2021 and declared an ESG management vision of “the most-trusted travel partner”.
Based on this, the company strives to reduce carbon emissions by installing photovoltaic power generation facilities at the 1st and 2nd Integrated Logistics Centers located in Yeongjongdo, Incheon, and replacing bonded transportation vehicles that transport duty free goods with electric vehicles.
In addition, Lotte Duty Free noted it has made significant progress in reducing disposable products by replacing air cushion packaging wraps with tarpaulin bags, and printed vouchers with smart receipts.✈
