Social Contribution Overseas
KT&G, South Korea’s top tobacco maker, has carried out various corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities at home and abroad, actively practicing its management philosophy of “Go-together Company.” The company has been involved in CSR activities in Cambodia, Indonesia, Uzbekistan and Mongolia over the past 11 years.
Since 2005 KT&G has dispatched a total of 960 volunteers to Cambodia on 35 separate missions. This year marks the 12th year the company sent volunteer teams.
The volunteer teams were sent to mainly Siem Reap Province in northwestern Cambodia and committed to building libraries, repairing educational facilities, providing educational programs including health and sanitation.
KT&G has carried out a global CSR project called “Sangsang Village” to improve living conditions of the poor and help them stand on their own two feet. In October 2014, the company chose Surabaya, Indonesia, as the first site and invested a total of 810 million won (US$694,087) to improve poor residential environments and provide residents with educational programs related to safety and finances.
Moreover, KT&G signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Mongolia's Ministry of Environment and Green Development in June this year in a bid to prevent the desertification in Mongolia in where desertification is rapidly going on due to global warming. The company will build a forestry and agriculture education center in Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia, to train reforestation professionals. It will also support research activities by creating learning and farming training centers.
In addition, KT&G has joined hands with Seoul National University Bundang Hospital to provide volunteer medical services to the disadvantaged in Indonesia since 2012.
The company invests more than 50 billion won (US$42.84 million) in CRS activities every year, including 80.8 billion won (US$69.24 million) last year. The ratio of CSR investment to sales stands at 2 percent, which is 10 times higher than the average of the nation’s top 200 companies at 0.2 percent, according to the data from the Federation of the Korean Industries. The cumulative amount for CSR over the last decade totals a whopping 580 billion won (US$497 million).