Voluntary GHG Reduction Target Management
LG Electronics announced its corporate wide voluntary GHG reduction target in January 2009. The company established a goal to reduce its GHG emissions from manufacturing level by 150 kilo tons, equivalent to 10% in 2020 compared to the 2008 baseline (cumulative reduction from 2008 to 2020 is around 1 million tons). For reduction of emissions during product use phase, we set a reduction target of 30 million tons of GHG emissions from the BAU* in 2020(cumulative reduction from 2007 to 2020 in approx. 200 million tons). To achieve its target, LG Electronics pursues various GHG reduction activities, including manufacturing process innovation, facility improvement, operation improvement and renewable energy use, and maintains its efforts to develop high efficiency products.
* BAU: Business As Usual. Projected GHG emission based on the assumption that the GHG reduction technology and policy are maintained to the current level.
Risks and Opportunities Management
LG Electronics manages climate change issues as a corporate wide key agenda in the perspective of mitigating climate change including GHG emissions reductions goal management and expanding green business portfolio.
LG Electronics has been managing reduction of GHG emissions in production levels and product usage levels as the company's primary business objective since late 2008. Also, LG Electronics runs green business portfolio as a corporate-level growth engine and main-stream business strategy, like solar cell and module business, LED lighting business, total air conditioning, and healthcare business (water purifier / ionizer, air purifier etc).
GHG Reduction Performance in 2010
LG Electronics set its target to reduce 100 kilo tons in production levels of GHG in 2010 compared to 2008 and achieved a 160 kilo tons GHG reduction through diverse activities, including production facility / operation improvement and the energy conversion. LG Electronics announced its plan to reduce 6 million tons of GHG emissions compared to the 2007 power consumption and contributed to 12.75 million ton reduction of GHG through high-efficiency technology development, R&D investment, and low-carbon products.
Below are LG Electronics' main activities to reduce GHG emissions at the production level and to contribute at the product usage level .
Facility and operation improvement LG Electronics achieved a yearly GHG gas reduction of approximately 20 kilo tons by improving the energy efficiency of compressors and air handling units, respectively used in the manufacturing facilities of air conditioners as well as household appliances and mobile phones.
Incineration waste heat recovery system LG Electronics' Changwon factories invested approximately KRW 7.2 billion to establish a steam supply system operating with waste heat from the incineration plant of the city. With the introduction of the new system, the company achieved a yearly reduction of 10 kilo tons of GHG emission and KRW 3.1 billion of energy consumption compared to the previous LNG system.
Water supplying methods improvement LG Electronics has voluntarily reduced electricity usage by installing high energy efficient cooling water pump and improving water supplying methods such as cooling water coil by-pass.(now operating and expected lifetime is 5 years). And we had reduced total 3 kilo tons CO2e through these activities.
Providing high energy-efficient refrigerators for low-income bracket In August 2010, LG Electronics participated in the old refrigerator replacement program as a part of Korea Energy Foundation's "low income families energy efficiency improvement project" and supplied 3,000 high energy efficient, refrigerators to low income families. The replacement of low income families' old refrigerators with LG Electronics' high-efficiency refrigerators will yield a yearly reduction of 1,260MWh of energy consumption and 850 tons of GHG emissions. LG Electronics Sales of low-carbon refrigerators to low income families.
Solar module installation in Gumi site LG Electronics has installed 37Kw class solar modules at the Gumi 1 Site in 2010 and by using its solar power energy we could reduce GHG emissions and saved the electricity costs. Solar power provides electricity used in the administration offices.
Voluntary Carbon Footprint Label Certification through LCA
As the importance of climate change goes on, LG Electronics concerns LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) concept with CO2. Based on the LCA results, the company provides carbon footprints of its products with the 3rd party certification. In 2008, the company's washing machine (model FR3228WA) received the industry's first certification from the Carbon Footprint Label program conducted by Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute (KEITI). Currently, LG Electronics endeavors to expand its carbon labeling certification to other products, including TVs, refrigerators, and air conditioners etc. and owing to voluntary carbon disclosure efforts, LG Electronics received a total of 25 carbon footprint labels for its components and products. For more information, please visit follow Carbon Foot Print homepage of KEITI : http://www.edp.or.kr/carbon/list/list.asp. LG Electronics has certified Carbon Reduction Label of UK Carbon Trust for 3D TVs (model 47LW5500-ZE / 550T-ZE) in June 2011 and this is the first certification among the TVs which are sold in European market.
