[News Article] SK Innovation turning green after four decades of R&D refinement
SK Innovation
turning green after four decades of R&D refinement
BY SARAH CHEA, Korea
JoongAng Daily - Once just an oil refiner, SK Innovation now seeks to transform
itself into a "green energy company" that prioritizes carbon
neutrality in its business operations. Research and
Development (R&D) has always been at the center of SK Innovation's journey,
which helped the company secure core technologies for a greener future,
including electric vehicle batteries and biopharmaceuticals. "SK Innovation
slogged its way to invest in R&D, and the capabilities it gained through
the process largely contributed to turning itself into an energy company that
owns key future technologies including batteries and biopharmaceuticals," said
Prof. Song Jae-yong who teaches business at Seoul National University, during a
press event announcing the results of his joint research on SK Innovation's 40
years of R&D management history, with Lee Ji-hwan, a business professor at
KAIST. SK's R&D
management is rooted in the philosophy of the late SK Group founder Chey
Jong-hyun, father of current Chairman Chey Tae-won, who emphasized that R&D
always should come with production and marketing, Song added. SK first opened an
R&D center in 1983 in Daejeon, as the first Korean petrochemical company to
do so. The center renamed itself to the Institute of Environmental Science
& Technology in 2021 and upped the number of researchers to 1,800, a
three-fold increase compared to the end of 2016. SK was also the
first Korean company to build an R&D center in the United States in 1989.
It recently built another one in Silicon Valley. Song and Lee also
shared some results that SK Innovation achieved through a focus on
R&D. In 1998 it
successfully developed its own lithium-ion batteries used for smartphones,
laptops and computers, which led to development of the fast-charging batteries
for electric vehicles. In 2004, SK also
developed lithium-ion battery separators, one of four core components of making
EV batteries, a first for a Korean company and the world's third company to do
so. SK also succeeded in
developing two U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drugs in 2019.
It was the first case in which a Korean company developed a drug independently
from the beginning and obtained approval from the FDA. "In terms of
biopharmaceuticals, it is the result of SK investing in it for more than three
decades," said Song. "R&D doesn't always lead to sales increase,
but SK's value surged more than six-fold compared to late 1990s." The combined market
capitalization of SK Innovation and its subsidiaries, which stood at 4.1
trillion won ($3.1 billion) in 1999, surged to 23.7 trillion won in 2022.
During the same period, the main Kospi bourse has increased 2.17 times over. "Through the
latest project, we confirmed that SK Innovation's corporate value has been
increased based on an emphasis on R&D," said Lee Seong-jun, head of
the Institute of Environmental Science & Technology. "SK Innovation
will become a global leader in the green energy area through continuous
innovation in R&D." Source:https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2023-08-29/business/industry/SK-Innovation-turning-green-after-four-decades-of-RD-refinement/1857704
2023.09.01
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