Press

SK E&S announced on the 8th that its urban regeneration project 'Localize Gunsan' has been selected as the main agenda of SK Group's Sub-SOVAC, and held an online conference titled 'Localize Live 2020' on the 7th in Jangmi-dong, Gunsan. SOVAC (Social Value Connect), which launched under the leadership of SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won last year, is the nation's largest privately-led social value festival that aims to discuss various social issues such as job shortages and environmental pollution based on collective intelligence. The Sub-SOVAC held this time is a preliminary event ahead of SK Group's SOVAC event in the second half of this year. Chairman Chey Tae-won emphasized that companies should play a safety net role for stakeholders, especially in crisis situations like COVID-19, and ordered each affiliate to actively prepare and implement measures that can be taken at the company level. SK E&S is seeking clues to solve local problems in Gunsan. Since March last year, it has been operating the 'Local:Rise Gunsan' project and became the first private company to undertake urban regeneration projects through social venture cultivation. The main goal is to develop the old downtown Younghwa-dong area into a cultural and tourism hub in North Jeolla Province and breathe new vitality into the city through job creation. The project has recently received more attention as 'localization' and 'decentralization' have emerged as trends due to COVID-19. In particular, it is being evaluated as achieving results in the role of a social safety net by revitalizing struggling local commercial areas. At the conference, domestic local experts including Lee Dong-gun (CEO of MyRealTrip), Cho Sang-rae (CEO of Underdogs), and Noh Tae-jun (team leader at Dangn Market) participated as panelists for a discussion. They identified 'localtact' as a mega-trend among representative post-COVID changes: △diversification of workplaces due to expanded remote work, △increased interest in domestic travel, and △spread of local-centered communities and commercial areas. Localtact is a neologism emerging as the next concept after Untact, meaning a new trend where relationships will be formed around local communities and villages as a paradigm shift occurs toward 'de-globalization' and 'localization'. SK E&S will also open an offline pop-up store 'Local City Exhibition: The City That Found Me' on the 9th, showcasing products commercialized by local social ventures in collaboration with Underdogs, a youth startup education specialist. The event, running until the 12th at the Underdogs headquarters in Walong-dong, Jongno-gu, will feature 26 social ventures in total, including startup teams from the Localize Gunsan project supported by SK E&S as well as local teams from other regions such as Gangneung and Jeju. SK E&S plans to display and sell approximately 100 types of products, including Gunsan seaweed, Gangneung ceramics with nature design, Jeju green tea, and various food and daily necessities from 26 brands, actively supporting product promotion for local startup teams. SK E&S plans to first make Gunsan a hub platform for regional regeneration, and then transplant Gunsan's model to other regions through collaboration with other cities, spreading the 'Localize DNA' comprehensively. SK E&S President Yoo Jung-jun said, "If Gunsan's urban regeneration story becomes a small starting point and converges with other regional urban regeneration projects, creating synergy between them, it will give momentum to spreading regional regeneration models. As SK E&S is conducting region-based energy businesses across the country, we will continue to contribute to solving pain points in each region and fulfill our role as a social safety net."