LG Plants 300 Indigenous Trees to Promote Recovery of Nairobi’s Ngong Hills Forest
LG Electronics (LG) East Africa has today planted 300 trees in the Ngong Hills Forest as part of its World Environment Day activities, which began last week. Ngong Hills Forest, which extends into Kenyan’s Rift Valley region is one of the three gazetted forests in the country’s capital, Nairobi (the others are Karura and Oloolua). It has undergone deforestation due to human settlement and other developments, events that have reduced its original 7,232 acres to the current 3,020 acres. Initiatives like LG’s tree planting, therefore, remain important in its restoration.
The tree planting activity, part of LG’s annual environmental protection and sustainability plans, brought together 60 employees, each planting five indigenous tree seedlings, with LG committing further support to the care of the planted trees for three years.
The exercise was conducted in partnership with the Tree Niches Organization, a not-for-profit organization working towards ending deforestation through establishment and restoration of tree niches in degraded forests and landscapes.
“Today’s tree-planting exercise reflects our commitment to safeguarding our environment, and we aim to use such engagements as forest restoration to inspire positive change and promote a more sustainable future,” said LG’s President for East Africa, Donghun Lee.
LG’s commitment to the preservation of natural environments goes beyond tree planting; the company has a sustainability and environmental policy that stipulates key environmental goals, including the reduction of carbon emissions generated by both its processes and products.
LG OLED TVs for example, have a simpler structure and fewer components, making them lighter than the LCD’s. The LG 65-inch OLED evo is made of ultra-light composite fiber, and requires only 40 percent of the plastic typically used in an LCD TV of the same size screen. It also weighs 20 percent less.
As a result, and based on the estimated sales of LG OLED TVs, the total amount of plastic used in LG OLED TVs from 2022 to 2024 was 45,000 tons lower than that of LCD TVs sold during the same period. This reduction in plastic usage in LG OLED TV construction is approximated to decrease carbon emissions by approximately 234,000 tons a year, equivalent to the carbon dioxide absorbed by a 30-year-old pine forest, a number that translates to about 55,000 acres of land or nearly the entire Mombasa County.
Recycled plastics also account for about 20 percent of the plastic used in the manufacturing of all LG TVs, including OLED TVs, equal to around 4,000 tons of recycled waste plastic annually. All other LG products including refrigerators, home entertainment systems, air conditioning units, and laundry machines, amongst others, have similar considerations for an all-round impact in environmental transformation.
Meanwhile, LG Electronics is on the path to a 100% transition to renewable energy by 2050 and to achieve completed carbon neutrality by 2030. This is accelerated by the introduction of energy-efficient facilities and carbon emission reduction devices throughout the company’s production process.
