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The birth of the Five POSCO Corporate Citizenship Brands! [episode 1]

2021/07/01

In 2018, POSCO declared its management philosophy of “Corporate Citizenship”, and as a member of the social community to make a better society, it has been engaging in solving social problems and exploring the roles at the corporate level. And in 2021, it launched the “the Five POSCO Corporate Citizenship Brands” in which all the employees directly participate, covering major projects. In this regard, the newsroom will introduce “the Five POSCO Corporate Citizenship Brands” newly created in 2021 in detail over a total of 6 episodes.

I POSCO, we want to deliver a sincere message.

Recently, advertisements by Swedish carmaker Volvo have become a hot issue online. Volvo, famous for proving the robustness of the product through destructive safety tests, once again produced an advertisement titled ‘The Ultimate Safety Test’. The appearance of a polar region with a glacier in the intro raises the expectation that safety tests in dangerous situations will be carried out. However, with the scene of the glacier collapsing, the twist begins. Then the message says “Climate change is the ultimate safety test. That’s why we’re changing to all-electric”, clearly revealing Volvo’s future direction.

Volvo Cars is actually operating a carbon emission reduction action plan and is actively participating in a joint project to cope with climate change. “We are part of the problem of climate change, but we can also be part of the solution. We have a responsibility to act,” said Hanna Fager, Head of Corporate Functions at Volvo Cars. This is an example of the sincerity of the values and social responsibilities pursued by companies.

In addition, not long ago, a campaign video of a chair brand gained popularity on YouTube with more than 5.9 million cumulative views. The Fursys Group’s ‘Lean on’ campaign is a video showing the contents of social contribution activities that produce and send customized chairs to those in need, such as grandmothers of Hangeul University and street busking musicians. This campaign received enthusiastic responses and won the “2020 Consumers’ Choice Outstanding Ad” online category.

Philip Kotler, a professor emeritus at Northwestern University who is called the master of management, defines the phenomenon that the company’s brand itself has become an active act on social responsibility as ‘brand activism’. This is because the company that the public wants to work with is ‘a company that steadily delivers a genuine message through the brand’.

Philip Kotler

POSCO has also been steadily practicing since the declaration of its management philosophy as a “Corporate Citizenship” in 2018 and the announcement of its five major projects. If so, let’s take a closer look at what the Five POSCO Corporate Citizenship Brands are.

I The background of the birth of the Five POSCO Corporate Citizenship Brands

POSCO Charter of Corporate Citizenship

As the preamble of the Corporate Citizenship Charter states, ‘As a member of the social community, POSCO is seeking and practicing corporate-level roles to engage in addressing social issues and to create a better society’.

And after the declaration of management philosophy, in 2019, the six major projects were selected to make these activities easier for more people to understand and empathize with.

Corporate Citizenship 6 Major Projects

However, with the recent emphasis on ESG management, it has become more important to respond to climate change and communicate with stakeholders on the environment and safety. In addition, the scope of activities as corporate citizenship has been further expanded, such as promoting major projects suitable for the characteristics of POSCO as well as group companies and also generating results.

In this way, in March 2021, the Five POSCO Corporate Citizenship Brands were finally born.

I Intensive exploratory! the Five POSCO Corporate Citizenship Brands

Five POSCO Corporate Citizenship Brands

In last December, as POSCO declared to achieve ‘2050 carbon neutrality’, Green With POSCO (a company you protect the environment with) was set as its signature brand, and Together With POSCO (a company you want to work with), Challenge With POSCO (a company you want to grow together with), Life With POSCO (a company you build a future together with), and Community With POSCO (a company you engage with for the local community) were designated as five major brands.

Together With POSCO (a company you want to work with)

First, let’s take a look at Together With POSCO, ‘a company you want to work with’. POSCO shows its willingness to create a stronger supply chain and industrial ecosystem based on its experience of presenting a new paradigm for shared growth with business partners. The brand includes activities that pursue cooperation and win-win value with various stakeholders.

POSCO is carrying out a new level of shared growth activities to meet higher social expectations and flexibly cope with changes in the management environment. The major projects are Benefit Sharing (a system that shares the performance of POSCO and its partners), Open sourcing (suppliers can promote their products without visiting in person), and Steel Win-Win Fund (worth KRW 100 billion funds to overcome the COVID-19 crisis, providing liquidity to small and medium-sized enterprises). Especially, 897 company members signed up in the e-Catalog system which is an open sourcing business, 5,257 products were introduced, and 1,529 products were contracted for purchasing (July 2019 to present).

 Together With POSCO

Challenge with POSCO (a company you want to grow together with)

Next is Challenge With POSCO, ‘a company you want to grow together with’! It is a brand that shows its willingness to become a ‘company that wants to grow together with’ by discovering and nurturing promising venture companies. It aims to achieve change and innovation in society and industry as a driving force for POSCO Group’s innovation and sustainable growth.

POSCO has established startup incubation spaces and is providing places for startups, including ‘Seoul Change Up Ground’, a public–private partnership incubation center (Ministry of SMEs and Startups). It also incubated and accelerated 60 startups through venture platforms in 2020. It continues to build a virtuous circle venture platform by discovering promising venture companies twice a year and supporting the entire process of business from the idea stage to the business model establishment, investment, and follow-up management. POSCO utilizes POSCO Group’s business capabilities and resources in line with the eco-friendly and low-carbon trends while working with partners with ideas to pursue “environment, sustainable city, production, and consumption.”

Challenge With POSCO,

Green with POSCO (a company you protect the environment with)- a signature brand

The signature brand, Green With POSCO, contains POSCO’s strong will to create ‘a company that protects the environment together’.

To achieve the target of ‘2050 Carbon Neutrality’, POSCO sets out a mid-to long-term target of 20% carbon reduction in 2030 and 50% in 2040. For now, it plans to optimize low carbon solutions that reduce carbon emissions that are already in use and apply low carbon technology step by step in the future. The first step is to improve energy efficiency and replace economically low carbon fuel materials, the second step is to upgrade scrap utilization and apply Carbon Capture Storage & Utilization (CCUS), and the third step is to develop existing FINEX-based hydrogen reduction and renewable energy-based carbon neutral steel process.

POSCO not only develops technologies to realize carbon neutrality but also carries out continuous communication and partnership activities with stakeholders. In addition, as a corporate citizen, it also actively participates in ‘My Little Challenge’, which can reduce carbon in his work and daily life.

Green With POSCO

Life With POSCO (a company you build a future together with)

Life with POSCO, ‘a company that makes the future together’, protects valuable values for employees such as safety, health, welfare, and education. POSCO strives to make Pohang and Gwangyang good cities to give birth to and raise children, and to provide various educational opportunities to develop the dreams of future generations.

‘1% Sharing Art School’, which helps to build dreams in culture and art, ‘Do Dream’, a program that supports teenagers in child welfare facilities to stand on their feet, and ‘Science Beyond Imagination’, an experience-based creativity lecture project that visits local schools in person are the major projects. Also, believing that ‘the future of young people is the future of a country’, POSCO aims to strengthen the employment capabilities of young people by operating ‘POSCO YOUTH DREAM’. It supports young people through academies to foster AI/Big Data-related talent and enter the industry, startup incubation schools for prospective startups, and Youth Sharing h, a job-linked program for small and medium-sized companies.

Life With POSCO (a company you build a future together with)

Community With POSCO (a company you engage with for the local community)

Community With POSCO, ‘a company you engage with for the local community’. POSCO perceived growing up with local communities as a corporate social responsibility from the beginning of its foundation. It plans to continue to present a model of coexistence and development around the hub area where POSCO Group’s business sites are located.

Currently, POSCO employees operate a total of 80 talent volunteer groups in Pohang, Gwangyang, and Seoul, participate in regional differentiated social contribution programs, practice sharing, and build trust with the local community by using work characteristics and specialties. It also operates free meal service centers in Pohang and Gwangyang and established a university student volunteer group ‘Beyond’ since 2007 to help regenerate farming and fishing villages and serve as a bridge between cities and villages.

In addition, it provides cultural contents of various genres that enhance the self-esteem of residents through classical music, musicals, and expert lectures such as POSCO Culture Concert, Kids Concert, and Year-End Concert. It also installed sculptures made with POSCO’s steel materials in Hwanho Park in Pohang and also installed sculptures that represent the local community in villages near Gwangyang Steel Works and strengthen solidarity with the local community.

Community With POSCO (a company you engage with for the local community)

I The power of a respected 100-year company comes from POSCO Corporate Citizenship!

Now, I think we should discover and promote activities that many people can sympathize with by utilizing the Five POSCO Corporate Citizenship Brands. As soon as the value of the five major brands that we practice and realize in person becomes POSCO’s corporate culture, won’t the public exclaim, ‘As expected, POSCO Corporate Citizenship!’ POSCO will continue to strive to help more people to participate and empathize with the five major brand activities of corporate citizenship. Concluding the story of the birth of the five major brands, we look forward to your continued interest and encouragement in “An easy-to-understand the Five POSCO Corporate Citizenship Brands’ story” that will be serialized in the future.


You must be very curious about how the Five POSCO Corporate Citizenship Brands were born. The 6 major projects of existing corporate citizenship have been steadily and actively carried out since December 2019. For the first time in Korea, the company held a low birth rate symposium and opened a change-up ground to open a public-private cooperative incubation center, and SK SOVAC also announced the case of establishing a POSCO venture platform.

However, the recent growing importance of ESG management around the world has widened the scope of corporate citizenship management philosophy promotion activities than before, and a brand that can accommodate new businesses of various sizes and ranges is urgently needed. Accordingly, POSCO renewed its brand focusing on projects that require safety and health at workplaces, climate change response, new business discovery and growth, sustainable production advantage, by-product resource-ization, stakeholder communication, community contribution activities, and air environment improvement.

As a result, in March, POSCO and its group companies included a variety of major projects to create ‘the Five POSCO Corporate Citizenship Brands’ that everyone can relate to, and in the 4th year of its declaration, the corporate citizenship management philosophy is widely publicized.

POSCO declared its achievement of ‘2050 carbon neutrality’ last year and declared to actively participate in the carbon neutrality vision. This is because the earth is in crisis due to climate change and carbon neutrality has emerged as the most important value.

POSCO selected Green With POSCO as its signature brand, reflecting its determined will to develop innovative technologies such as continuous investment, hydrogen-reduction steel, and create ‘Green Steel’ through members’ carbon neutral activities.

POSCO practices its signature brand Green With POSCO, participating in carbon neutralization activities and carbon reduction activities in everyday life with all employees. Many employees are actively participating in the ‘My Little Challenge’, which uses a mobile application to support goal achievement to communicate with colleagues and practice and habituate small goals in their daily lives. In addition, we are voluntarily participating in daily activities such as using a tumbler to realize carbon neutrality, reading ESG books, and using public transportation.

To realize the Five POSCO Corporate Citizenship Brands, POSCO plans to develop individual businesses and achievements that contain management philosophy.

If we reorganize five brands, including signature brands, into visible vivid content and communicate with stakeholders with POSCO, we will be able to further strengthen our external evaluation of a company that wants to trade with, a company that wants to buy products’.

All employees will directly participate in more than one brand business, experience success, and re-recognize the importance of corporate citizenship management philosophy. All of these changes will be the foundation of POSCO, a respected 100-year company.

※This content was created based on POSCO Group’s integrated communication channel ‘POSCO-TODAY’.

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