Since 2017, SK Innovation has delivered helping hand to the vulnerables of Korean society with its “1% Happiness Sharing Fund” program, which is voluntarily donated by SK Innovaiton members amount to 1% of their base-salary.

SK Innovation’s “1% Happiness Sharing Fund” was agreed upon during union-management negotiations in September 2017 and implemented the following October. It generated nearly KRW 5.38 billion last year alone. Continued support of SK members is expected to raise the cumulative total of the program to KRW 16.36 billion by the end of this year, KRW 9.7 billion of which has been earmarked for mutual benefit programs with SK Innovation’s business partners and CSR programs.

This year’s “1% Happiness Sharing Fund,” which includes the amount from a matching grant^(*) program from SK Innovation, will reach KRW 5.64 billion, a KRW 0.26 billion increase from last year.

(*) Matching grant: A means used for CSR (corporate social responsibility) programs, where the corporation provides a contribution matching the donations from its members at a scale of 1:1

Among last year’s KRW 5.38 billion raised by “1% Happiness Sharing Fund,” SK Innovation donated KRW 2.62 billion to the “win-win growth” programs that support the partners of SK Innovation. This donation was transferred to partners in Ulsan and Incheon in January and August 2019, respectively. The remaining funds were used to support 15 CSR programs, including the support for the socially vulnerable, job creation through social enterprises, and projects for the independence of workers with developmental disabilities, through the branches of the Community Chest of Korea in Seoul, Incheon, and Ulsan.

A part of the fund was used in SK Innovation’s “Mangrove Reforestation Project,” a project designed to create social value in environmental areas. As a part of this program, 125,000 mangrove seedlings were planted in Vietnam’s Tra Vinh Province over an area of 29 ha (hectares), equivalent to the size of 40 football fields.

Let’s take a more in-depth look into how SK Innovation’s “1% Happiness Sharing Fund” is bringing warmth to many areas of Korean society.