Herald Corp. on Thursday launched a partnership with the Korean chapter of World Wide Fund for Nature, the world’s leading conservationist organization, to promote the awareness of environmental protection and healthy, eco-friendly lifestyles. 

Under the agreement, Herald will donate 30 million won ($27,000) to support WWF-Korea’s research into Korea’s ecological footprint. The company will also use its media outlets to promote its activities to better protect endangered species and spread sustainable consumption.

The media company publishes The Korea Herald, the nation’s largest English-language newspaper, The Herald Business and The Junior Herald.

Best known for its “Earth Hour” campaign, the Swiss-based WWF runs about 1,300 conservation projects in more than 100 nations with the support of about 6 million members. The group has been operating in Korea for 10 years and set up its Seoul chapter in March last year.

“When I heard your mission statement, to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, I found it remarkably similar to our mission statement, and we knew that we had to do something together,” Herald Chairman Jungwook Hong said as he signed the memorandum of understanding with WWF-Korea Cochairman Jean-Paul Paddack in the company’s headquarters, Herald Square, in Seoul.

Paddack hailed the company’s commitment to efforts to save the planet and protect species from climate change and pollutions.

“We believe there is a lot of room for changing habits for sustainable consumption and production,” he said. 

The company’s donation will be used for WWF-Korea’s project to measure Korea’s ecological footprint and case studies on cities carrying out sustainable urban policies.

Ecological footprint, a gauge for human demand on nature and the ecosystem, measures the area of biologically productive land and sea that supply resources for human consumption.

Herald will also assist WWF-Korea’s publication of children’s cartoons for environmental education.

The company promised that Organica, its premium natural food affiliate founded in 2013, will make efforts to ensure its all products meet the WWF’s sustainable food standards by 2017.

The partnership marks the latest in a series of green initiatives by Herald since Hong took over the company in the early 2000s.

“When The Korea Herald was founded back in 1953 in the aftermath of the Korean War, the issue of sustainability was not the most pressing issue; when I acquired the company in 2002, sustainability was still not the foremost issue,” Hong told Paddack.

Hong said he dreamed of turning Herald Corp. around purpose-wise, putting the company’s emphasis not on profit but on value, meaning “simply loving nature and humans.”


By Chung Joo-won (joowonc@heraldcorp.com)