Korean top managers, including Vice Chairman Huh Myung-soo of GS E&C and concurrently chairman of Korea Business Council for Sustainable Development (KBCSD), gesture as they attend the Sustainable Business Innovation Forum, hosted by KBCSD in Seoul on Oct. 25. (Photo: KBCSD)

Top managers in Korea, including Vice Chairman Huh Myung-soo of GS E&C, assembled to ponder ways to promote innovation for sustainable development in Seoul on Oct. 25.

Korea Business Council for Sustainable Development (KBCSD), headed by GS E&C Vice Chairman Huh, hosted the Sustainable Business Innovation Forum in cooperation with the Ministry of Environment and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) at the Grand InterContinental Hotel.

In his speech at the opening ceremony, KBCSD Chairman Huh suggested three ways the industry and the public sector can drive a sustainable future: entrepreneurship for solving sustainability issues and enhancing production efficiency and environmental values; innovation and technology to resurrect an economic driving force; and the government and international organizations’ policy support to shore up technology innovation opportunities.

To this end, he asked for each government and international bodies’ cooperation for mid- and long-term innovation strategies to proactively cope with green conversion projects, such as the implementation of “Green New Deal” policies, which would likely create about 190 million jobs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions if each government uses one-third of fossil fuel subsidies as well as job creation realignment.

Chair Wang Jiming of the China Business Council for Sustainable Development (CBCSD) called for the Korean and Chinese industry communities to create a win-win environment in the global business field and eco-friendly and qualitative growth through the industry’s contribution in the course of the achieving of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The event was designed to cope with a paradigm shift of mainstay business among advanced countries through dramatic new industry and technology investment and regulatory innovation such as manufacturing upgrade amid the weakening of the industry community’s growth momentum, caused by a rise in social costs such as global low-growth, trade conflicts, variables of resources markets and climate change.

In order to respond to these trends of the times, CEOs of Korean and foreign companies striving to rise to game changers of the global economy and sustainable development looked at how any differentiation technology and innovation such as smart factory, plastic substation technology, circular economy, energy conversion, smart city, and mobility would contribute to creating economic, social and environmental values.

The forum also serve as an opportunity for each central, local government, and international body to explore transformative policies and regulatory innovation along with the Environment Ministry, CEOs and international organization representatives and the public and private sectors to discuss the private community’s roles of evolving the technologies of the 4th Industrial Revolution with inclusive economic growth.

Speakers such as Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Yoon Boo-keun, LG Chem Vice Chairman Shin Hak-cheol, and Senior Executive Vice President Wei-Ming Jiang of DSM Global, concurrently president of DSM China participated in the first session, titled “Setting the Scene.”

They shared innovative practices of solving global issues using technology power in diverse areas such as battery, agricultural sector, response to climate change, and water resources and energy.