Most Innovative Company
CJ Group said on August 25 that it has been chosen for this year’s World-Changing Innovative Companies to Watch, which is sponsored by US-based business magazine Fortune.
The magazine has chosen companies from all over the world since last year based on how much impact the corporations have on society and how innovative they are in doing their business. CJ is the only Asian company that makes it to the seven World-Changing Companies to Watch by earning high scores in that it has succeeded in localizing a Vietnamese farming house development project.
Fortune has introduced CJ as a company that addresses deep-rooted poverty problems with tiny seeds and praised CJ CheilJedang, an affiliate of CJ Group, for taking the lead in promoting the New Village Movement (or Saemaul Movement) that drove the development of rural villages in its native country. CJ successfully cultivated pepper seeds by transferring agricultural technology to the farming houses in Ninh Thuận Province, a typical low-income area in Vietnam in partnership with the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) since 2013.
The magazine has also evaluated the South Korean company as an innovative model of Creating Shared Value (CSV) as it has introduced agricultural technology while supporting for local farmers to voluntarily organize themselves for the New Village Movement. CJ is aggressively leading the projects to enhance conditions of education and living in rural areas, including building village halls, renovating kindergartens and elementary schools, and providing water for living and drinking. Its ultimate goal is to set up a healthy and future-oriented culture in rural communities beyond simply increasing the income of rural households.
The selected seven innovative companies this year include Swedish retail-clothing company H&M and US-based recycling company TerraCycle, along with CJ, which will be introduced in detail in Fortune’s September issue.