SK Telecom has been named a 2027 LEAD company by the UN Global Compact (UNGC) Network Korea in recognition of its sustainability leadership, the mobile carrier said Tuesday. The company received the designation at the 2026 Korea Leaders Summit, which the network hosted at Grand Hyatt Seoul. The UN Global Compact is the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative, launched by the United Nations in 2000. It encourages companies to build principles on human rights, labor, the environment and anti-corruption into their operations. Each year, the Korean network chooses about 10 companies and institutions as LEAD participants from its roughly 360 members. The selections recognize contributions to spreading sustainability management and developing the country’s ESG ecosystem. ESG stands for environmental, social and governance, the standards used to measure a company’s sustainability and ethical practices. SK Telecom co-chairs the network’s environment working group. In that role, it shared its experience handling major ESG issues and its know-how in building ESG management syst