SK rent-a-car, the first in the industry to publish a sustainability report
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2022-05-31
- Managing financial and non-financial performances and the implementation process in an integrated and transparent manner and disclosing them every year
- Opening ‘A+MAZE’, the ESG strategic direction to the public and aligning the report system with the UN SDGs
▲ Advancing the future of mobility service (digital transformation and making platforms for the services)
▲ Making a happy life (implementing human rights management)
▲ Accelerating customer satisfaction (Customer Satisfaction Improvement)
▲ Zero-emission (Action on Climate Change)
▲ Ethical governance (Establishment of a Sound Governance)
- A limited number of NFTs created in commemoration of the first edition of the report
- “We will take the lead in making the society and environment sustainable, based on sincere ESG management”
SK rent-a-car (CEO: Hwang Il-moon) announced on the 31st that the company published a sustainability report for the first time in the industry to enhance transparent communication with various stakeholders.
Last year, SK rent-a-car revamped its organizational structure, infrastructure, and systems for ESG management. Its organization dedicated to ESG was expanded to the division-level unit while internal and external networks were reinforced. The ESG Committee was newly established under the Board of Directors (BOD so that it could present the practical discussion and guidance with regard to ESG. In addition, a female outside director was appointed for the first time for the sake of raising diversity within the board.
On the foundation of these efforts, the company received ‘A’ grade in the ‘2021 ESG management assessment’ announced by the Korea Corporate Governance Service (KCGS), which was two steps upgraded from the previous ‘B’ grade.
Taking it a step further, the company even declared its firm will and sincerity in ESG management. As part of enhancing the management and disclosure of the information, it published the industry’s first sustainability report this year, which is earlier than the mandatory time of publication by law (in 2025). The report includes the ESG strategic direction and systems of SK rent-a-car, newly established this year as well as major activities, detailed performances, and information in line with international standards by each area for the last year.
SK rent-a-car CEO Hwang Il-moon said, “ESG should become a philosophy and the reason for existence for a company.” He also added, “the Board of Directors and the ESG Committee under it will carry out ESG management with strong leadership based on heated discussions and open communication, aiming for the happiness of all our stakeholders and next generation,” expressing his will.
First, the company selected four key areas for ESG activities; (1) happiness of the stakeholders (Making a happy life), (2) customer satisfaction (Accelerating customer satisfaction), (3) climate action (Zero-emission), and (4) sound governance (Ethical governance). ‘MAZE’ is an acronym for these four key areas.
An SK rent-a-car official said, “the meaning of MAZE is ‘a confusing collection or mixture of things’ in the dictionary. It refers to the current global state where the difficult concept and details of ESG make it hard to find ways to promote it despite its criticality. We also aligned the corporate business activities, which is advancing the future of mobility service, with ESG.” He explained, “The conversion with ESG led to ‘A+MAZE’, which contains our ambition to amaze the world with our mobility services beneficial to people and the environment.” “This is the result of the firm management philosophy that the corporate business and ESG activities are not separated, but one thing,” he added. ※ Refer to the bottom of the article for the summary of the key tasks of A+MAZE)
The notable features of the report are the announcement of selective action plans for each strategic task in detail, messages from the CEO and the Chair of the BOD showing aspirations, and the intuitive design of the five ESG strategic directions using the same colors with the UN SDGs.
[Picture 1] SK rent-a-car reflected the colors symbolizing each area of SDGs, which have to be achieved by the UN and the international community, in the five ESG strategic directions.
With an aim to enhance the credibility of the report, the Korea Management Registrar (KMR), an external institution outside SK rent-a-car, conducted verification of the data. SK rent-a-car plans to publish the ESG report annually while managing financial and non-financial performances and the implementation process in an integrated and transparent manner and disclosing them every year.
In commemoration of the first edition of the sustainability report, the company also creates the report in the form of NFT (Non-Fungible Token) for the first time in Korea, showing its will for new technology and future innovation. The token, produced as a short video with a three-dimensional effect, will be created in limited quantities for internal and external stakeholders.
The full text of SK rent-a-car Sustainability Report can be found on the company homepage (company.skcarrental.com).
An SK rent-a-car official said, “we hope that the publication of the report can serve as an opportunity for us to have a transparent and facilitated communication with various stakeholders.” He emphasized, “we will take the lead in making the society and environment sustainable, based on sincere ESG management.”
[Picture 2] Cover page of the sustainability report published by SK rent-a-car for the first time in the industry
※ Summarized Key Tasks of ‘A+MAZE’ [For the entire details, please visit SK rent-a-car homepage. (company.skcarrental.com)]
1. Advancing the future of mobility service – ‘digital transformation and making platforms for the services’
SK rent-a-car plans to launch various new services. For example, it will extend the online platform business model, aiming to build an open platform offering valuable data-based services. Also, it will enhance the collaboration with the external O2O platform for visiting maintenance services.
2. Making a happy life – ‘implementing human rights management’
This year, SK rent-a-car plans to announce the direction of human rights management while creating jobs and securing job security by maintaining stable labor-management relations. It will create a corporate environment in which work-life balance is realized by fully meeting the family-friendly legal requirements.
3. Accelerating customer satisfaction – ‘Customer Satisfaction Improvement’
SK rent-a-car advances its management system for personal data protection by raising the gravity of customer data security and cyber security in order to ensure the better safety of data assets. As part of the effort, the company will maintain the ISMS-P certification, the first one obtained in 2020 while disclosing its various efforts to protect privacy data including its investments/human resource policies/certifications obtained/activities, etc.
4. Zero-emission – ‘Action on Climate Change’
SK rent-a-car plans to launch eco-friendly products and services while putting its focus on improving and managing energy efficiency. And the company has embarked on its journey towards the transition to eco-friendly, pollution-free vehicles 100% by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2040. To this end, it plans to roll out a variety of earth-friendly services utilizing EVs. As part of the effort, SK rent-a-car continues to run a demonstration project designed to take advantage of EVs to measure the amount of carbon emissions mitigated, and then secure carbon credits. And a project to use EV as ESS (Energy Storage System) is one of the representative activities to handle the imbalance between power supply and demand. In addition, the scope of EV charging service will be expanded and the Korea’s largest-scale park exclusive to EVs will be unveiled in Jeju in 2023.
5. Ethical governance – ‘Establishment of a Sound Governance’
This year, SK rent-a-car is preparing to be ISO 37001-certified while taking its ethics level up a notch by preventing employees from committing unethical acts and protecting its human and physical resources. And it also plans to usher in a fair trade compliance program and establish a transparent data disclosure system that encompasses the expansion of non-financial data disclosure and the introduction of the BOD _uation system.