LG announces green gadget investment plan

South Korea's LG Group has today announced it is to invest 20 trillion won (£11.5bn) by 2020 in the development of environmentally-friendly products as the company aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 40 per cent against 2009 levels by the end of the decade.

Under the new plan, the company is aiming to cut 50 million metric tones of greenhouse gas emissions every year up to 2020, while expanding its production of energy-efficient products and renewable energy products to 10 per cent of the group's total revenue by 2020.

The firm said it will also increase the energy efficiency of its traditional products such as fridges, televisions and air conditioning units, and further expand its current investments in fuel cells, electric car batteries and solar cells.

The new strategy is the latest in a series of moves designed to bolster the company's environmental credentials. For example, earlier this month LG Electronics signed an agreement for all of its products to be tested independently for energy efficiency by three of the world's top certification authorities – Underwriters Laboratories, Intertek and CSA International – before being released to market.

"By making excellent products whose energy efficiency can be independently verified, LG is at the forefront of international efforts by manufacturers to conserve energy," said Yong Nam, chief executive of LG Electronics, at the time.

The move will also further underline South Korea's position as one of the world's fastest emerging clean tech hubs.

The country is the world's ninth largest and Asia's fourth-largest polluter and last year reported that CO2 levels had doubled since 1990. But the government was among the first in Asia to announce an emissions target, pledging to cut emissions by 30 per cent below b usiness-as-usual levels by 2020, and earlier this month was reported to be considering a carbon tax.

The South Korea government was widely praised by green groups for earmarking around 80 per cent of its economic stimulus spending for use in low carbon projects, and last year it predicted that South Korean manufacturing companies would invest more than 3.8 trillion won (£2bn) in the clean technology sector by the end of 2010, up from 3 trillion won (£1.7bn) in 2009.

Samsung, the nation's other electronics giant, has also said it would invest 5.4 trillion won (£3.2bn) in green research and development by 2013.