Lotte Shopping announced on Friday that it had signed an agreement with Nonghyup Bank and Hana Bank to foster its core environmental, social and governance (ESG) businesses. Under the agreement, Lotte Shopping will receive KWN 1tn (US$ 773mn) from the two banks over the next five years. Lotte Shopping, which owns Korea’s largest department store operator Lotte Department Store and the hypermarket chain Lotte Mart, will use some of the funds to make early payments to small- and mid-sized (SME) supply partners grappling with liquidity crunches. Lotte Shopping will use the rest to broaden the use of light-emitting diode (LED) lamps and low-energy consuming heaters and air conditioners to boost energy efficiency, and adopt solar power generation, in line with Lotte Group’s 2040 Net Zero road map.

In 2021, Lotte Shopping set up an ESG committee under its board of directors and became the first Korean retailer to join the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). That global body was launched in 2015 to promote best practices in emissions reduction and net-zero targets based on climate science. Lately, it has been engaging in sustainable growth campaigns under its new environmental campaign brand RE:EARTH. In its first Sustainability Report in 2021, parent Lotte Group unveiled its official ESG statement of achieving net zero emissions by 2040 and becoming a leader in global ESG management by 2025.