Pursuing shared growth with local communities and partner companies
Social-contribution activities grounded in employee participation, such as the POSCO 1% Foundation and the POSCO Talent Volunteer Corps
The bond between POSCO and the city of Pohang began the moment Pohang was confirmed as the site for the new steelworks in June 1967. As POSCO grew into a global steel company, Pohang, the city where POSCO is based, grew along with it. Now, more than half a century after POSCO and Pohang came together, Pohang has become the leading city of the Gyeongbuk region with a population of 500,000 and the mecca of Korea's steel industry. In the course of the city's growth, POSCO offered a variety of support from its earliest days—actively running education projects to cultivate local talent and creating spaces where citizens could enjoy culture and the arts. In Part 2, we examine POSCO's community-based social-contribution activities, focusing on the "Pohang Community Report" and the "Gwangyang Community Report."
POSCO's Sustainable Management 1. Shared Growth
[POSCO's four supply-chain management strategies and eight shared-growth programs ©2022 POSCO Corporate Citizenship Report]
POSCO began activities for shared growth in the late 1990s, when the very term "shared growth" was still unfamiliar. In 2005 it formed a dedicated shared-growth organization and continued support for coexistence with small and medium-sized enterprises. Using its eight shared-growth programs, it helped suppliers solve problems and, beyond mere social-contribution activities, sought to grow together with SMEs and strengthen the supply chain of domestic industry. With the inauguration of POSCO Group Chairman Choi Jeong-woo in 2018, the company signed the "With POSCO Shared-Growth Practice Agreement," which included support for coexistence management with partner companies, closing wage gaps, and expanding shared-growth programs, and it extended shared-growth benefits down to second-tier partner companies. Since 2021 it has operated a Shared-Growth Support Group to assist not only partner companies but also local SMEs, identifying improvement tasks centered on four areas—building smart factories, resolving ESG issues, equipment and energy efficiency, technological innovation—and encouraging local SMEs to strengthen competitiveness on the basis of sales expansion and cost reduction.
[Pohang citizens holding a celebration on July 19, 1985, welcoming the approval to establish Pohang University of Science and Technology ©2022 Pohang Community Report]
POSCO has, from its earliest days, considered growing together with the local community—not just local companies—to be a corporate social responsibility. Based on its management philosophy of being "a corporate citizen that develops together with others," it divided its focus into three areas—local community, future generations and vulnerable groups, employees—established three strategies accordingly, and sought directions in which more social value could be created by making the most of the company's strengths. A notable undertaking is its education-support project for building a sustainable local community. Beginning with the Jecheol Scholarship Foundation in 1971, its early founding period, it established the Jecheol Academy school foundation in 1976. The total number of graduates produced through POSCO's education foundation is 129,112; as of 2022, it accommodates 5,489 (10%) of Pohang's 55,521 elementary, middle, and high school students, providing a high-quality educational environment. After establishing the middle- and high-school foundation, it founded Pohang University of Science and Technology, "POSTECH," in 1986 and the Research Institute of Industrial Science & Technology (RIST) in 1987, then opened "Technopark," which supports venture start-ups, in 2000 and the start-up support space "Change Up Ground" in 2021, thereby building a world-class industry-academia-research cluster in Pohang. As of 2022, Pohang Change Up Ground housed a total of 98 companies with a combined corporate value of 1.4018 trillion won. Moreover, through the operation of Pohang Change Up Ground, it attracted 60 billion won in investment.
POSCO's Sustainable Management 2. Sharing Through Volunteering
The strength that enables POSCO to carry out active social-contribution activities lies in the voluntary and active participation of POSCO's employees. The funds of the "POSCO 1% Foundation," a nonprofit public-interest foundation established in November 2013, are raised when employees of POSCO Group and its partner companies donate 1% of their salaries. Over the past ten years the number of donors alone has reached 34,818, and donations recorded 10.17 billion won, an increase of about 131% compared with 2013, the first year of establishment. Project expenditures likewise reached 12.55 billion won compared with 2013, providing generous support to future generations, vulnerable groups, people with disabilities, and multicultural families. In 2022 the donation participation rate through the 1% Foundation was 98%, with 275,147 cumulative beneficiaries and 85.5 billion won in cumulative funds raised.
[Composition of major talent-volunteer corps by region ©2022 Pohang Community Report]
POSCO also operates volunteer organizations. The "POSCO Volunteer Corps," founded in 2003, is likewise run on the basis of voluntary employee participation. In particular, it steadily maintains relationships with the local community through talent-volunteer activities that make use of individual employees' job characteristics and special skills, and it also runs a special volunteer week, the "Global Model Citizen Walk," to build a better local community. Cumulative volunteer hours alone reach 346,855, and the number of volunteer participants is 13,096.
[Pohang Clean Ocean Volunteer Corps ©2022 Pohang Community Report]
The Pohang "Clean Ocean" volunteer activity, launched in 2009, carries out activities for the marine ecosystem. The marine debris collected by the Clean Ocean Volunteer Corps to date totals 2,060 tons, and over the past 15 years 19,368 people have taken part in preserving the marine ecological environment and in underwater cleanup activities, amounting to 77,472 volunteer hours.
Through the highlights of its Corporate Citizenship Report, POSCO makes it easy for the general public to understand its achievements to date, including its corporate-citizenship management philosophy and ESG strategy framework. It also provides files that the POSCO Talent Volunteer Corps recorded as audiobooks through the Good Voice volunteer group, so that POSCO's efforts and achievements can reach diverse stakeholders. As the title of POSCO's 2022 Corporate Citizenship Report suggests, we look forward to the better future that POSCO and its local community will create together.
by Editor N