SK Ecoplant, Rapid Growth in Eco-Friendly Business Three Years After Entering with New Technology

[K-Construction, New Challenge]
Domestic and International Environmental Business Sales
Surged to 982.7 Billion KRW by the End of Last Year

SK ecoplant changed its name from ‘SK Construction’ in 2021. This was to diversify its business scope from a construction company focused on civil engineering to the eco-friendly energy sector demanded by the times. This reflects the will of SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, who emphasizes eco-friendly management. After three years, SK ecoplant is solidifying its position as a leading domestic eco-friendly company based on its downstream capabilities such as the number one incineration water treatment in Korea. It has also achieved export results in the green industry through the application of new technologies represented by technological advancement. Expansion of high value-added recycling businesses such as waste batteries and waste plastics is also underway.

Thanks to these achievements, sales have also increased. SK ecoplant’s domestic and overseas environmental business sales grew rapidly by 85%, from about KRW 530 billion at the end of 2021 to KRW 982.7 billion at the end of last year. During the same period, the proportion of environmental business sales also jumped from 8.52% to about 13%.

In particular, SK ecoplant is gradually advancing its eco-friendly business by introducing new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and digital transformation (DT). It is also working to change the structure of the industry itself by establishing an ESG (environment, social, governance) system in its environmental subsidiaries.

A representative example is the country’s first AI operation optimization solution for incinerators developed in collaboration with global cloud company Amazon Web Services (AWS). Last year, after applying the AI operation solution to five incineration facilities of environmental subsidiaries, emissions of harmful substances such as carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) were reduced by 49.9% and 12.2%, respectively. Meanwhile, energy production increased by 3.1%. This technology has been exported to Vietnam, Malaysia, and other countries.

As a result of introducing an AI-based operation optimization solution for water treatment facilities, energy electricity consumption was reduced by about 21.6%. SK ecoplant also launched ‘Wavle,’ a digital waste management platform that digitizes the entire waste treatment process. Within one year of its launch, the number of applying operators nearly tripled, and the cumulative waste treatment volume exceeded 40,000 tons. Due to these achievements, it won the Innovation Award in the smart city category at the world’s largest electronics and IT exhibition, CES 2023.

SK ecoplant is also standing out in the high value-added recycling market such as waste batteries, not only in downstream (processing). It has secured global bases in North America, Europe, and Asia, and completed the supply chain based on collaboration with battery material companies and finished battery companies. Together with the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources and Chonnam National University, it developed rare metal recovery technologies with 97% nickel and cobalt and 90% lithium recovery rates, and filed patents for four core technologies for pre- and post-processing of waste batteries. Recycling plants for waste batteries are also under construction at major bases in North America, Europe, and Asia, including Kentucky in the U.S., Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and Yancheng in China.

In particular, TES, SK ecoplant’s recycling specialized subsidiary, is evaluated to have differentiated competitiveness by possessing know-how for the entire waste battery recycling value chain, including collection, pre-processing, and post-processing. TES is also participating in battery supply chains such as the Global Battery Alliance and the European Battery Alliance. The industry recognizes TES’s excellent capability to collect waste batteries generated worldwide and send them to hub plants at key recycling bases to extract rare metals.