These days, full of warm spring vibes, the ‘My Little Challenge’ wind has come to POSCO. ‘My Little Challenge’ is a program in which employees freely select and practice goals(challenges) that help to create a better society as well as their individual lives if they continue to practice in their daily lives.
My Little Challenge puts meaning in building POSCO employees’ habits of considering the environment through various challenge activities such as △using tumblers △walking 10,000 steps a day △climbing stairs △using public transportation △reading ESG-related articles, and more for carbon neutrality. In particular, the process of practicing the challenge can be communicated with colleagues in real-time through photos or text messages, allowing them to challenge small goals in their daily lives with colleagues rather than alone.
In My Little Challenge, not only the carbon-neutral practice challenge, but also about 240 various challenges selected and registered autonomously by each department are registered including health-related challenges such as ’20 minutes a day exercise habit’, learning-related challenges such as reading books/certificate study, a thank you challenge, and more.
About 65% of the ongoing challenges are carbon-neutral practice challenges. Then let’s learn more about the carbon-neutral representative challenge selected by POSCO employees.
Challenge Example① Donating 5,000 steps a day (using the app ‘Big Walk’)
‘Gathering steps to make a better world’. The first representative challenge for carbon neutrality selected by POSCO employees is “Donating 5,000 steps a day.”
But if anyone asks, “Is it possible to donate by steps?” answer “Yes” without a second of hesitation! There is a user-participating donation mobile platform (*Big Walk) where companies and organizations set up campaigns based on information from beneficiaries and receive donations from campaign participants to complete the campaign.
Taking care of health, reducing air pollution, and donating by ‘walking,’ the ‘donating 5,000 steps a day’ challenge is more than killing three birds with one stone. It is a representative challenge with POSCO’s corporate citizenship spirit by accumulating its steps as points through the app and contributing to society by donating its steps to a campaign for non-profit organizations set by companies and organizations.
Challenge example② Collecting plastic caps/bottleneck rings
‘Rediscovering the unused plastic’. The ‘Collecting plastic caps/bottleneck rings ‘ challenge is a challenge to collect and upcycle plastic bottle caps that are buried or incinerated as trash because they are not recycled in the sorting process even if they are discharged separately as recyclables.
Plastic bottles used in everyday life are collected separately, and bottle caps are collected and sent to a ‘plastic mill’ run by the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement to be reborn as tube squeeze for toothpaste tubes. The reborn tube squeeze will be distributed to challenge participants.
Challenge example③ Recording greenhouse gas emissions from own vehicles
‘A little caring for a healthy Earth’. Recently, activities have been underway around the world to reduce greenhouse gases, the main culprit of global warming. According to the National Institute of Environmental Research, Korea’s automobile greenhouse gas emissions account for 14% of the total greenhouse gases(Check!), so various policies and activities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles are lined up, and POSCO people are also joining this with a ‘recording greenhouse gas emissions from own vehicle‘ challenge.
The ‘Recording greenhouse gas emissions from own vehicle‘ challenge is a challenge that calculates greenhouse gases generated by vehicles when commuting to work and records it in the company chat window, or autonomously records greenhouse gas reductions when using public transportation, walking, or carpooling. If you record your greenhouse gas emissions, you can directly recognize how much greenhouse gas you have emitted, enabling small practices for carbon neutrality, and participating in creating a healthy Earth by minimizing car use.
Challenge example④ Gold Spoon, Silver Spoon Challenge
‘Living habits for the environment begin with very small practices’. According to statistics from the Ministry of Environment, daily plastic emissions in Korea in the first half of last year recorded 853 tons, an increase of about 15% compared to the same period of the previous year, so the issue of disposable products in Korea is at a serious level.
POSCO’s My Little Challenge will host the ‘Gold Spoon, Silver Spoon Challenge’ to reduce these disposable products for practicing carbon neutrality. It is a challenge of not using disposable spoon and chopsticks when ordering a lunch box from the company or bringing from home, and leave a message in the company app chat room such as “I used the spoon I brought from home on the 00th~’. It is one of POSCO’s eco-friendly representative challenges in that it can protect the environment while having a delicious lunch with colleagues.
POSCO plans to continue the challenge activities for each department by operating the ‘My Little Challenge’ on a seasonal basis. Through this, small but consistent corporate citizenship activities are expected to lead to individual habits of POSCO employees and further contribute to the rooted culture of POSCO.