LG Chem

Headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, LG Chem is the largest Korean chemical company. The company operates within several business areas such as petrochemicals, energy solutions, advanced materials and life sciences. In addition to various petrochemicals, its products include plastic resins, engineering plastics and industrial and electronic materials. LG Chem belongs to the LG Group.

Total score

12 / 48

Grade summary

LG Chem is one of the biggest losers of ChemScore 2021, down five points compared to last year and slipping from a C to a D+. The company produces nine highly hazardous substances. Compared to some of the…

Product Portfolio

3 / 18

LG Chem produces/uses 9 highly hazardous substances –9 SIN List chemicals, 1 PIC, and 1 HHP – 2 of which are included on the EU’s REACH Candidate List. 1 of these highly hazardous substances is either banned or severely restricted, with set dates when production needs to cease (1 Authorisation List substances, and no POPs). The company produces no persistent chemicals.

Please note that there is no available data for the 69 percent of the company’s production that takes place outside of the EU and US. Lower EU/US production means higher uncertainty with regard to the total production of hazardous chemicals, which will have a negative impact on the company’s score in this category.

Development of Safer Chemicals

6 / 12

LG Chem has a method in place to screen and assess the sustainability of its products and includes the intrinsic hazards of ingredients in the screening process. It does not, however, exclude substances with toxic properties from its new products. LG Chem actively markets safer alternatives both on its own website as well as on ChemSec Marketplace. The company has no true circular product, process or innovation. LG Chem does not use biobased resources. It does, however, source and treat recycled materials in a sustainable way, which is one of the key elements of a circular economy. LG Chem is not actively reducing the hazardous waste it generates.

Management & Transparency

3 / 12

The Korean company does not produce only sustainable products, and has no phase-out strategy for hazardous substances that go beyond regulatory compliance. It shares chemical safety information on its website and is following a credible code of conduct standard. LG Chem responded to ChemSec’s attempts to communicate around its ChemScore ranking. However, the company does not share any information about what kind of chemicals it produces in regions with low regulatory demands for transparency (e.g. Asia). LG Chem does not have a circular economy program in place, thus lacking objective and measurable circular economy targets.