KOSPI-listed companies with total consolidated assets of 10 trillion won or more must file sustainability (ESG) disclosures from 2028. The timing was fixed as the government finalized its plan to institutionalize sustainability disclosure. In fiscal year terms, 2027 results are the first subject, and since the disclosure goes into the annual business report, the data companies actually have to handle arises from January next year. A little over five months remain until the data starts to accumulate.
The mandate then widens to companies with total consolidated assets of 5 trillion won or more. The expansion comes in 2029.
An analysis by Kim Yun-hee, an analyst at the National Assembly Budget Office, shows that listed companies active in disclosure have traits in common. Their assets are large, they belong to the financial industry, and their corporate history is short. The disclosure rate for the group at the opposite end was tallied at 0%, and the top group was 76%. The populations behind the two figures and the dates they were compiled were not presented alongside them.
The side identified as the blind spot is small and midsize manufacturers with long histories. The forces that have driven compliance are the National Pension Service and carbon regulation. Both the pension fund's demands and the pressure of carbon regulation reach large companies and the financial sector far more strongly.
Moves on the side that is preparing quickly are concrete. POSCO Holdings has set up a company-wide ESG disclosure task force to respond to the 2028 statutory disclosure under KSSB standards. Three working groups are running, taking charge respectively of greenhouse gas emissions and reduction target management, building an internal carbon pricing system, and climate-related financial impact analysis.
The target deadline is the end of 2026, about six months. The internal carbon pricing scheme has been used in investment decisions since 2024, and the company is examining whether to extend it to major operating subsidiaries.
For the first mandatory disclosure, the company has drawn up a plan to report first on the 14 main entities that account for more than 90% of consolidated revenue, and to widen it to all consolidated entities when 2028 data is disclosed in 2029. It is a way of splitting the disclosure into stages to spread the burden. The approach does not work for companies that have neither an organization to split nor staff to divide.
Government support is increasing on the personnel side. The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment (Minister Kim Sung-hwan) and the Korea Environmental Industry and Technology Institute (President Nam Kwang-woo) will expand training programs for sustainability specialists in the second half. The number of trainees in advanced courses by field, such as greenhouse gas emissions calculation and life cycle assessment (LCA), rises from the initial 700 to 1,000.
The "Sustainability Disclosure and Assurance Course" in August-September comes with a special session covering greenhouse gas emissions calculation and disclosure standards. The training program itself has been run at basic, comprehensive and advanced levels since 2023.
Documents dealing with the standards are out as well. The Korea Environmental Industry and Technology Institute and the Korea Accounting Institute jointly published considerations for measuring Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions for sustainability-related financial disclosure in February 2026. In November, an "ESG Global Training Workshop" on mandatory disclosure will be held, and there are plans to invite disclosure officials from Japan and Australia. The government said it will build working practices through KSSB pilot tests by industry.
The private sector is also gathering samples for reference. i-ESG is conducting an analysis based on an EAV data model, using about 1,400 sustainability reports published around the world as its sample.
The next point to check is January 2027. The emissions and climate-related financial impact data arising from then go straight into the 2028 business report.
