LG Electronics' John Taylor talks with Sara Gutterman about the company's Better Life 2030 ESG plan, including its RE100 renewable energy commitment, recycled plastics and e-waste goals, and efforts to cut scope three emissions through heat pump technology.
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Sara Gutterman: LG has really been a leader in corporate sustainability for many years, and you've been a major part of that. So talk to us about some of the goals and commitments that you've made and what's what are you most excited about with respect to your ESG and corporate sustainability strategy?
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John Taylor: Well, we've kind of done a reset on our environmental, social and governance ESG program over the last year under our new CEO, establishing what we call the Better Life 2030 plan, which looks ahead a wide range of initiatives that kind of end up in six different buckets carbon neutrality, circularity, clean technology, a responsible workplace, diversity and inclusion and accessible design, and all of those things kind of ladder up to this broader theme for our ESG, which is a better life for all.
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Sara Gutterman: Now, you recently joined the Re 100 initiative. Can you tell our readers what that is and why it's important to LG?
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John Taylor: Re 100 stands for Renewable Energy 100 a Commitment to transition to 100% use of renewable energy across all of our global operations. That is a major undertaking when you're in all the countries we are around the world, just about every major country. I'm proud to say here in the United States, we actually achieve that goal in 2022. So we already have 100% renewable, largely solar on site solar and through utility solar as well as wind and covering not just our offices and warehouses, but also our factories in the United States as well.
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Sara Gutterman: Now, LG also has a strong commitment to circularity. So can you talk about your plastic recycling and electric electronic waste collection and waste reduction initiatives?
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John Taylor: These are complementary activities. You look at recycling plastics. We have a goal of using 600,000 metric tons of recycled plastics in our products by 2030. We're already making great strides in moving in that direction. And it started with some of the plastic parts and refrigerators, but now you'll see recycled plastics in things like soundbars and wireless speakers. And we're really proud of that progress.
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John Taylor: E-waste is also a major focus for us. We've been doing that a lot in the United States for a number of years. We collected here over 50 million pounds of e-waste over the last year in the US, but that pales in comparison to the the numbers that we're seeing overseas just in the past year. LG globally has recovered 473,000 tons of e-waste in 52 countries and cumulatively since 2006.
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John Taylor: That's almost 4 million tons of e-waste. And not just collecting it, but the responsible recycling of that is is a critical piece of it.
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Sara Gutterman: I know that LG is also committed to reducing your scope three emissions from product usage. So can you talk first about what scope three emissions are and how you are reducing them?
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John Taylor: If you look at scopes one and two, that's direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions from basically from your operations, whether it's in your warehouses, your factories, your transportation network and everything else in the use phase, that's that scope three and some things down in the in the supply chain as well. But mostly think about the use phase and where we can make the biggest impact is continuing to make the most energy efficient products possible.
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John Taylor: And we're proud to be Energy Star Partner of the year again this year, ten for our 10th year.
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Sara Gutterman: Are there any products within your HVAC portfolio that you're particularly excited about or proud of? Right now, absolutely.
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John Taylor: Well, there's so much focus today in Washington and throughout the country on heat pump technology and the important role of electrification as it relates to the decarbonization movement. And we have been leading in that area as.
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John Taylor: Unlike some of our competitors that still focus in, have a lot of products that are fossil fuel based. We've always been electric, we've always been heat pump based, and we're really leaning in in that area and helping our customers, whether they're residential customers like commercial or large commercial customers, to to really take full advantage of the benefits of heat pump technology, both on HVAC side and that same division also is bringing to market this year our first heat pump water heater.
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Sara Gutterman: How is LG working with your vendors, customers, and other stakeholders within your supply chain to reduce your collective carbon footprint?
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John Taylor: Well, a lot of that is leading by example, but we just started in the past year to to really have a more formalized program with our starting with our tier one suppliers. We started with a comprehensive survey trying to assess their carbon emissions. It's not unlike what we do with many of our customers. We work arm and arm with any of our major customers.
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John Taylor: They all have ESG goals and their suppliers like us, help them meet that. Well, we're going through a similar process with our own supplier network, and so far we've had over 150 participating in this initial program. We are launching a carbon neutrality awareness program, really taking some of the things that we've learned, and we're going to learn from them at the same time.
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John Taylor: It's very collaborative, so I'm excited about that next phase.
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Sara Gutterman: Do you think that we're moving fast enough? Do you think we're going to make it?
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John Taylor: Absolutely. Think we're going to make it. You could always move faster, but there are so many moving parts. I'm proud of where we are. We want to do our part. We want to partner with others to to help advance the cause. And we're going to get there.