What you should do right today

The Paris Agreement and the SBTi

How to reduce greenhouse gases. This is the topic on which all the countries around the globe are competing with each other. Reducing carbon emissions is directly related to lowering the temperature of the Earth (or at least decreasing the degree of increase). Lowering the temperature of the Earth is a core keyword for how the future mankind could survive.

The average temperature of the Earth has continued to rise over the past four decades. From the era before the period of industrialization, the temperature has risen by 0.87 °C for the decade between 2006 and 2015, and by 1.09 °C for another decade between 2011 and 2020. The temperature increase rate has risen more steeply as time passes by, and it is highly likely that the temperature would geometrically hike once it goes beyond the critical point. Even right now, there are extreme weather events occurring one after another around the whole world. Large wildfires, heavy rain, and flood are the regular theme of global news. From here on, the problem will definitely spread to the food crisis and environmental damage beyond unusual weather.

To settle the issue, countries gathered to conclude the Paris Agreement a decade ago. It is a global agreement for the carbon emission reduction plans, which is finally drawn according to the long climate discussions before. From the Paris Agreement selected by 196 countries at the 'COP21 of the Global Climate Change Conference,' held in Paris, France on 12 December 2015, which took effect on 4 November 2016, countries around the globe could start specific actions for reducing greenhouse gases. The agreements drawn at the Paris Agreement can be summarized into a single sentence: "Make the best efforts to keep the increase in the average temperature of the Earth at a considerably lower level than 2 °C lower than the level before the industrialization and limit it to 1.5 °C."

This goal has a very important significance. Since an unimaginable disaster can occur if the situation where the Earth is made hotter and hotter is just left alone, the limit of 1.5 °C from the level before the industrialization has been determined as a bridgehead to prevent such a disaster. There are numerous hurdles to overcome to execute the limit of 1.5 °C. Overcoming such obstacles and observing the Paris Agreement has become a task facing each nation and each enterprise.

Those parties who must reduce carbon emissions, that is, enterprises in each nation had worries over the Paris Agreement after it had been declared. The most difficult was that the specific methods and determination criteria for reducing greenhouse gases were so vague. According to what criteria should you reduce greenhouse gases? And the SBTi emerged to give the solution. The 'Science-Based Target Initiative' is an international organization that presents the methodology to reduce greenhouse gases reflecting the latest climate science knowledge and induce the participation of enterprises by providing model cases and the like.

The SBTi has been jointly founded by the World Resource Institute, the World Wide Fund for Nature, the UN Global Compact, the Carbon Disclosure Project, and the We Mean Business Coalition. In addition, the IKEA Foundation, Amazon, and the Bezos Earth Fund has provided the key funds. Among them, the IKEA Foundation is still providing plenty of financial support up until now. There have also been other fund sponsors for each project, such as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Moore Foundation, and now, even the Climate Arc and the Laudes Foundation are taking part in the project. The SBTi, founded in 2015, has a clear goal. It is to help enterprises to set a carbon emission reduction goal according to the Paris Agreement. The SBTi is being operated without a head office currently as of 2025, and around 200 employees are working for the organization, helping verify the climate goals set by enterprises around the globe.

Hankook & Company Group has actively practiced the ESG management for a long time. Hankook Tire & Technology declared that sustainability is one of its major values for its business management in 2010, and prepared the ESG management systems and operation plans as well. In 2021, the company formed the ESG committee in its Board of Directors, and in 2022, it also established the '2050 Carbon Neutrality Roadmap' to be assessed as a company with the globally top-level ESG management. In August 2023, it made a major leap forward towards carbon neutrality by acquiring the approval for the 2030 near-term greenhouse gases reduction goals and the '2050 Net-Zero' goals from the SBTi for the first time in the tire industry in Korea.

Hankook Tire & Technology plans to reduce the total volume of direct greenhouse gases emissions (Scope 1) generated in the product production steps and indirect greenhouse gases emissions (Scope 2) due to the energy use and the like by 46.2% from the level of 2019 by 2030 according to the recommended criteria of the SBTi. In addition, the company plans to reduce all greenhouse gases generated in the product production and major sales activities by reducing the total volume of greenhouse gases generated in the whole value chain (Scope 3) by 27.5% in the mid- and long-term.

For reference, the definitions of scope of carbon emissions for verifying the goals of the SBTi are classified by Scope 1, 2, and 3. Scope 1 is about directly emitting carbon in the process of performing business such as a manufacturing process of enterprises. Scope 2 deals with the carbon emission volume indirectly caused by energy use of electric power and steam for businesses. Scope 3 indicates the total sum of external emission volume of carbon generated in all value chain including the products, services, and buildings purchased by the enterprises as well as the lifecycle of the products manufactured by the enterprises.

Hankook Tire & Technology has unfolded greenhouse gases use reduction activities including continuous facility efficiency increase and the use of low-carbon energy even before the approval of the SBTi. In 2018, the company has declared the E.Circle which is an eco-friendly circulatory economic system along with the sustainable natural rubber policy. This is a strategy to increase sustainability by applying Recycle, Renewable, Reuse, and Reduce to all the processes of products. The performances of sustainability innovation based on the E.Circle include the fact that Hankook Tire became the first in the global tire industry to receive ISCC PLUS(+) certification for bio-oil and polymers in 2021, and the ISSC PLUS(+) certification for the three types of recycled carbon black from used tires in 2024. The ISCC Is the International Sustainability & Carbon Certification, which is a global environmentally-friendly international certification system.

Hanon Systems plans to reduce the direct greenhouse gases emissions (Scope 1) and the indirect emissions (Scope 2) respectively by 50% from the level of 2019 by 2030 according to the SBTi reduction goals. In addition, it plans to reduce the external emissions generated from its purchased products and services (Scope 3) by 55%. Furthermore, the company aims at a target to reduce the total emission volume of the sum of Scope 1, 2, and 3 by 90% by 2040, and achieve the greenhouse gases emission volume of zero over the whole value chain by 2050, thereby completing the goal of Net-Zero. To this end, Hanon Systems is performing diverse activities to make efforts for environmental management for reducing carbon footprints, develop carbon reduction and low-carbon solutions, and set and practice carbon neutrality roadmaps.