Samsung faces mounting pressure from Korean environmentalists. According to the Korea Federation for Environmental Movements (KFEM), technology companies' investments in the coal industry have caused over thirty thousand premature deaths. KFEM attributes the investment's contribution to air pollution, which annually contributes to the health problems of a large part of the population in the country. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development estimated in 2016 that today's polluted air could cause by 2060 premature deaths of more than a thousand South Koreans for every million people in the population.
KFEM staged a protest outside the company's headquarters in downtown Seoul on Tuesday to draw attention to Samsung's insurance division's investment in the coal industry. During the past twelve years, the company was supposed to invest fifteen trillion won (approx. 300 billion crowns) in the operation of forty coal-fired power plants. During that period, the power plants produced six billion tons of carbon emissions, roughly eight times the total emissions produced in all of South Korea in 2016, according to activists.
Samsung announced in October that it no longer intends to invest money in the operation of outdated power plants. According to the insurance division of Samsung Life, the company has not invested in similar projects since August 2018. The company further disputes the amount of fifteen trillion, which is used by activists as an argument for protests. In addition, Samsung did not support investment in the construction of a coal port in Queensland, Australia, in August. Official positions and company goals go hand in hand with the promise of the South Korean government, which wants to invest 2030 billion dollars (approx. 46 million crowns) in the support of renewable energy sources by 1,031.
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