본문 바로가기

Issue/WT Notices

[Korean Social Enterprises News] 2.From Building Social Enterprises to Purchasing and Loaning [HERI]

WT Newsletter, January – Jun, 2011


[Korean Social Enterprises News]


2. From Building Social Enterprises to Purchasing and Loaning [HERI Review] CSR-POSCO



POSCO has built 4 social enterprises. They aim to provide workplaces to disadvantaged people and return corporate earnings and technical know-how to the community. Employees of these social enterprises are diverse: the physically challenged, North Korean refugees, international-married migrant women, and seniors over the age of 55. POSCO and their subsidiaries make “ethical” purchases of their products and services, and loan KRW50 billion for 10 years at low interest through POSCO Smile Microcredit Bank. POSCO also runs Pro Bono groups to assist the establishment and management of social enterprises.


Songdo-SE is a social enterprise that is in charge of the clean-up and parking for company buildings of POSCO Family at Songdo, Incheon.

34 of the company’s 127 employees are North Korean refugees.


Posplate, a social enterprise established last year, is affiliated with steel businesses in order to provide stable work to about 60 disadvantaged people, including unemployed youth, heads of single-parent families, and the physically challenged. Their main business is processing Gwangyang Iron & Steel Co’s new plates, managing stock and the shipment of plates.


Posco Eco Housing is the first independent and environment-friendly social enterprise which concentrates on steel houses and steel skeleton buildings. While hiring 67% of its employees from the disadvantaged population, it also re-invest two third of its profit for social purposes.


Established in 2008, Poswith is the first subsidiary standard workplace for physically challenged people, with 169 employees (55%) being physically challenged. Its business is laundering factory uniforms and running other services such as a call-center entrusted with POSCO.

Through the above four social enterprises, POSCO plans to create 890 workplaces for the disadvantaged population.



Reference: the Hankyoreh