On December 16, POSCO donated 25,968 tons of certified emission reduction (CER) to the Pyeongchang Organizing Committee of the 2018 Olympic & Paralympic Winter Games (POCOG), offsetting the generation of greenhouse gas emissions.
The donated amount is equivalent to the power generated by twenty 1-megawatt wind power generators (30 percent efficiency). This certified emission reduction will be used to offset the greenhouse gas emissions generated both before and during the winter Olympics, contributing to achieving the goal of zero greenhouse gas emissions for the first time in the history of the Olympics.
The donation is especially meaningful since private corporations are contributing to a low-carbon Olympics. During the donation ceremony, which was held at the PyeongChang Organizing Committee’s office in Jung-gu, Seoul, POSCO and SK Energy donated a total of 75,321 tons of CER.
Sangpyo Kim, Vice President of Games Facilities of the Pyeongchang Organizing Committee said, “I’d like to thank corporations that feel obliged to follow the Emissions Trading Scheme and participate in the offsetting of greenhouse gas emissions for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.”
The donated CER was the credit purchased from Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) business approved by United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). CDM businesses are companies from developed nations that invest in clean-energy projects in developing countries and in exchange, they earn carbon credits which can be traded in international carbon markets, such as the EU. The UN is in charge of the whole process, from business registration to carbon credit certification. POSCO’s CER was donated to the Olympic Committee through CER funds operated by Korea Investment and Securities.
To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, POSCO has been focusing on △ energy efficiency improvement, △ high-efficiency steel products development and △ low carbon technology development. High-efficiency steel products, such as △ high-tensile auto steel plates, which improve fuel efficiency through lightweight car body and △low iron-loss electrical steel, which improves energy efficiency of motors and transformers, are especially contributing to the greenhouse gas emissions reduction by reducing energy at the end-user level.
Furthermore, POSCO has been raising public awareness of climate change through the operation of “POSCO Carbon Neutral Program” and disclosing POSCO’s climate change activities to related parties by publishing a carbon report (integrated to sustainability report from 2015), which is verified by a third party.