• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.379-409
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• 2007

Korea's energy sector was one of policy sectors that exhibited the classical bureaucratic governance of an administrative state. Under the regime, government monopolized the policy-making process and controled the market and the civil society. It not only provided energy goods and services directly through public enterprises but also dominated the market activities through public regulations. However, during 1993~2002, stringent reformation efforts were made to transform the governance regime from the past bureaucratic model to the market model, by way of privatization of public enterprises and deregulation. The ideology behind the reformation based on the shared recognition that the market and spontaneous order thereof is the better apparatus than the government and artificial order thereof in solving social problems mote efficiently. From the year of 2003, another round of reformation efforts have been promoted to introduce the participatory governance model, through institutionalization of channels for the wider participation of civil society into the energy policy-making process. This reformation efforts respond to; first, the increasing criticism from the civil society on the closedness of energy policy process and the higher probability of policy failures thereof, and second, the recognition that the self-organizing nature of an open policy process is the better mechanism for evolutionary problem-solving.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.102-120
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• 2022

With the growing importance of ESG as a must-have business strategy, this study attempted to analyze the current state of ESG practices in the Korean fashion businesses. The ESG cases of fashion business were collected from news articles searched on the largest Korean internet portal by November 2021 from October 2020 when the number of articles began to increase meaningfully. Three hundred ninety one ESG cases of 112 fashion manufacturing brands and 332 ESG cases of 49 retail brands were analyzed. Casual and outdoor/sportswear brands among fashion manufacturers were most active in ESG practices, and various online and offline retailers were practicing ESG. Approximately one-third of the fashion brands were positioned as eco-friendly concept. While environmental practices were the most practiced ESG, governance was the least practiced. Among environmental practices, fashion manufacturing businesses were most active in eco-friendly product development, while retail businesses were in eco-friendly campaign-event-service and eco-friendly packaging. The most active social practice was the contribution to communities, followed by retail businesses' sharing growth with partner businesses. Governance practices were focused on the structure and operation of the board. Various ESG collaborations with various partners were also observed. The research result is meaningful verifying and diagnosing the ESG practices of the Korean fashion businesses.

• Journal of East-Asian Urban History
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.7-26
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• 2020

Urban pollution has been a problem in China since ancient times. In modern times, pollution was aggravated by industrialization and urbanization and became closely related to people's lives. Shanghai was the industrial center and the most urbanized place of modern China. As a price, it needed to face extremely serious urban pollution, and the treatment of this problem involved all aspects of social life. Noise pollution let foreigners to interpret the Chinese people and the city of Shanghai from a cultural perspective, and let Chinese residents to understand Shanghai and the nation from a civilized perspective. Pollution regulation made Shanghai the first city in modern China to implement overall pollution control and levy environmental protection fees. It also enabled the Chinese to gradually fight for their rights in urban governance. Urban pollution also brought business opportunities; in the highly commercial city of Shanghai, it promoted the development of some industries. The experience of urban pollution and its treatment prompted the people of Shanghai to rethink and re-recognize modern civilization, and also promoted the formation of Shanghai urban community.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.1009-1016
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• 2022

As environmental concerns grow, people are becoming more aware of energy efficiency, carbon reduction, and sustainable development. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification is currently the most widely recognized building environment assessment method connected to energy and the environment worldwide. This study explores trends for six factors (energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, sustainable sites, water efficiency, and innovation in design) to assess four levels of LEED certification (Platinum, gold, silver, and certified) using 11,209 LEED projects in the United States. The study analyzes trends using scores of percentages of maximum points by certification level, ownership type, space type, and climate zones. With the interest in the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principle on the rise, this study contributes to a better understanding of the trends and future of LEED certification in the built environment sector.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.33-49
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• 2014

This study empirically examines the impact of firms' environmental (E), social (S), and governancial (G) factors on their short-term and long-term values. To measure firms' non-financial performance, we use ESG performance grades published by KCGS (Korea Corporate Governance Service). We employ stock log return as the proxy of each firm's short-term value, and Tobin's Q ratio as that of its long-term value. From a series of regression analyses, we find each of the ESG factors generally has a negative impact on stock return while it has a positive impact on the Tobin's Q ratio. These results imply that firms' effort for enhancing their non-financial performance may adversely affect their financial performance in a short term; but in the long-term point of view, firms' values increase through their good images engraved by their respective social, environmental and governancial efforts. In addition, we compare the relative strength of impact among E, S, G, the three non-financial factors on the firms' value measured in Tobin's Q ratio, and find that S (social factor) and G (governancial factor) give statistically significant impact on the firms' value respectively. This result tells us it would be advised to strategically embed CSV (creating shared value) pursuing both of profits and social responsibility in the firms' future agenda. While E (environmental factor) is shown to be an insignificant factor for the firms' value, it should be emphasized as a major concern by all the stakeholders in order to form a sound business ecosystem.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.65-85
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• 2022

In this study, in order to derive the priority of indicators and sustainability areas of smart ports, which means ports in the digital era, previous studies and ESG, which have recently been indispensably introduced in all industries worldwide, were studied together. A hierarchical structure was established with upper evaluation items and 20 lower evaluation items in four areas (operational, environmental, social, and governance), and a relative evaluation method of weighting items among the AHP techniques was applied. The pairwise comparison questionnaire consisted of a 9-point scale proposed by Satty (1980). A survey was conducted targeting working-level workers who perform sustainability or ESG(Environmental, Social, Governance)-related work at four representative port authorities in Korea (Busan, Incheon, Ulsan, Yeosu Gwangyang). In order to increase the accuracy of the analysis results, AHP analysis was conducted on 17 questionnaires with a consistency ratio of 0.1 or less. As a result of the analysis, it was confirmed that among the four areas representing the sustainability of domestic smart ports, the operation area had the highest priority, followed by the environment area. In addition, looking at the overall priorities for the 20 detailed indicators, indicators such as operational efficiency, operational planning, energy management, and pollution measurement and management system were found to have high priority. On the other hand, it was confirmed that the social and the governance areas had relatively low importance compared to other areas.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.85-100
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• 2023

Corporate ESG performance (environmental, social, and corporate governance) reflecting a company's strategic sustainability has emerged as one of the main factors in today's investment decisions. The traditional ESG performance rating process is largely performed in a qualitative and subjective manner based on the institution-specific criteria, entailing limitations in reliability, predictability, and timeliness when making investment decisions. This study attempted to predict the corporate ESG rating through automated machine learning based on quantitative and disclosed corporate financial information. Using 12 types (21,360 cases) of market-disclosed financial information and 1,780 ESG measures available through the Korea Institute of Corporate Governance and Sustainability during 2019 to 2021, we suggested a deep neural network prediction model. Our model yielded about 86% of accurate classification performance in predicting ESG rating, showing better performance than other comparative models. This study contributed the literature in a way that the model achieved relatively accurate ESG rating predictions through an automated process using quantitative and publicly available corporate financial information. In terms of practical implications, the general investors can benefit from the prediction accuracy and time efficiency of our proposed model with nominal cost. In addition, this study can be expanded by accumulating more Korean and international data and by developing a more robust and complex model in the future.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.145-156
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• 2022

In recent years, as there is growing concern with ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), the strategic direction of business management is changing from maximizing shareholders wealth to maximizing stakeholders value. ESG is reshaping a corporation's supply chain management strategies. The purpose of this study is to explore the ESG challenges in supply chain management. As a result of network text analysis and topic modeling analysis on 3226 news articles, 'Suppliers', 'Sustainability', 'Shared Growth' 'Carbon Neutral', 'Safety and Health', 'Responsible Business Alliance', 'Supply Chain Due Diligence Law' were identified as the main issue. Since ESG initiatives in the supply chain are not limited to the efforts of individual firms, future research should focus on figuring out what difficulties and challenges exist in the diffusion of ESG practices along multi-tiered supply chains, and how to overcome them.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.186-196
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• 2022

In recent years, ESG activities (Environment, Social and Governance) have been paid more and more attention by enterprises and their stakeholders in various countries. China is the largest developing country in the world. The ESG performance of Chinese listed enterprises helps to understand the shortcomings of their sustainable development ability and further enhance the firm value. Moreover, the interaction effect between green innovation investment and ESG activities is of great significance for enterprises to balance the resource allocation between the two factors in the future. Taking listed Chinese manufacturing companies from 2011 to 2020 as an example, this study investigates the influence of ESG activities on financial performance and non-financial performance, and tests the moderating role of green innovation. Our results show that: (1) ESG performance has a negative impact on financial performance; (2) ESG performance has a positive impact on non-financial performance; (3) Green innovation can positively adjust the negative impact of environmental activities on financial performance. However, it will enhance the negative impact of governance activities on financial performance. The interaction effect between green innovation and social activities on corporate financial performance is a substitution effect; (4) With the improvement of green innovation level, the positive impact of ESG overall performance and environmental performance on corporate reputation will also be suppressed.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2023

This study is a leading case of empirical analysis of whether, when corporate stakeholders (government, investors, customers, managers, employees) put pressure on companies for ESG management, it affects the introduction and implementation of ESG activities (environmental, social, governance) and affects business performance. As for the research method, a sustainability report was published, and a web survey of Korea Research Inc. was conducted from May 10 to May 20, 2022 targeting ESG management managers of 192 companies, and analyzed through the PLS structural equation model. As a result of the study, it was found that the introduction and execution of ESG is closely influenced by the pressure from the government, investors, managers, and employees, and in particular, the internal pressure of current managers and executives and employees has a great impact on the introduction and implementation of environmental, social, and governance activities. In particular, although external pressure also has some influence, it is practical to suggest that strong internal pressure is necessary for continuous activities and performance. And, methodologically, the main activity indicators of the GRI Reporting Guidelines, which are the most representative ESG management indicators, were developed as a questionnaire, and reliability, validity, and model fit were secured through comparison with indicators of multiple systems and expert reviews. The limitations of this study are that more in-depth analysis by industry or size is possible when ESG management is mature and sufficient samples are secured, and complex ESG pressure factor modeling is possible when more diverse stakeholders are added.