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Underdogs, a practical startup education company (CEO Kim Jung-heon), conducted a webinar on ESG with the Korea Productivity Center's Sustainability Center on the 3rd, the company announced on the 8th. ESG stands for Environment, Social, and Governance, representing non-financial aspects of a company. In Korea, due to social issues such as COVID-19 and climate crisis, awareness of sustainable management has spread, and domestic companies and institutions continue to make efforts to adopt ESG perspectives. Accordingly, Underdogs, a practical startup education company that has fostered social ventures and startups through partnerships with companies and institutions, organized an ESG webinar to help partners understand and apply ESG strategies. The webinar's first session was held for CSR and CSV managers, while the second session targeted startups. Oh Beom-taek, director of the Korea Productivity Center's Sustainable Management Center, opened the first session by introducing the social background that made ESG perspectives important and ESG strategies applicable to organizations. Regarding the difference between existing CSR and CSV and ESG, he explained, "While previous corporate social contribution mainly took a charitable direction such as simple donations, regardless of a company's technology and core business, ESG is a standard directly related to a company's major production processes and business." In particular, when implementing strategies, he noted that "organizations must examine their entire value chain and mid-to-long-term strategies to identify businesses that can create social impact." Cho Sang-rae, co-representative of Underdogs, presented two methods by which companies and institutions can implement ESG strategies with Underdogs. He stated, "First is creating ESG value by companies and institutions nurturing social ventures that match the value keywords of their business. In fact, Underdogs has created ESG outcomes through partnerships with various partner companies and institutions. Examples include the GS Social Impact Project to discover social ventures in the environmental manufacturing field, SK E&S Localize, which educates and supports entrepreneurs promoting regional regeneration, and KT&G Imagination Startup Camp, which provides education and community to young entrepreneurs to nurture social ventures." Co-representative Cho added that the second method is "indirectly achieving ESG outcomes by establishing partnerships with social ventures and open innovation that achieve social values." Underdogs introduced cases of companies' open innovation with social ventures, including 'PaperPop,' which makes everyday items from paper, collaborating with SK Holdings to manufacture eco-friendly office furniture, and 'Elephant Factory,' which repairs toys for vulnerable populations and collaborated with companies to create toys from residual plastic. Following this, representatives from SK E&S Localize and GS SHOP Eco Social Impact Project presented on the topic of 'company cases successfully integrating ESG strategies with CSR and CSV,' and through questions, participating company and institution members shared their ESG activities and concerns as well as solutions for ESG strategy implementation. An Ji-hye, director of Underdogs who oversaw the webinar, said, "I believe not only the ESG concept but also practical cases that managers can try were well communicated. Through this opportunity, I hope ESG strategies are well applied to Underdogs' partner companies and institutions. Going forward, Underdogs plans to share concerns as a partner of companies and institutions and propose various solutions to assist them." Source: Kyeonggi Daily (http://www.kyeonggi.com)