SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics said on Monday that it would invest 5.4 trillion won ($4.30 billion) in green R&D and facilities to make the world's largest memory chipmaker a leading eco-friendly company by 2013.
Of the total, 3.1 trillion won will be spent to develop co-friendly products, and the remainder on energy-saving technologies and the environmental improvement of manufacturing facilities, the company said in a statement.
The eco-management 2013 plan includes reducing greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing facilities by 50 percent, cutting total indirect greenhouse gas emissions from all products by 84 million tons through 2013, and ensuring 100 percent of its products are eco-friendly, the statement said.
The plan also included exceeding global eco-mark standards, it said.
"This eco-management initiative will encompass all of our global operations, supply chain, and the complete lifecycle of Samsung products, and by achieving these goals we aim to lead the way in tackling the environmental problems that are facing our planet," Samsung Electronics' vice chairman and CEO Yoon-woo Lee said.
The South Korean government said earlier this month that it would invest 107 trillion won, or 2 percent of its annual GDP, in environment-related industries over the next five years. It also separately said that it aimed to raise 2 trillion won for so-called "green industries" from the private sector.
($1=1257.0 Won)
(Reporting by Cho Meeyoung; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Jonathan Hopfner)
