A trend in corporate social responsibility among South Korea’s leading businesses is to provide their signature electronics devices to improve people’s daily lives or work environments, according to the industry on Wednesday.

Samsung Electronics, the nation’s top conglomerate with a range of tech affiliates, said it plans to donate a total of 1,000 sets of thermal imaging cameras and other communications equipment for emergency situations to every fire station across the country.

The tech giant held a briefing on the functions and operations of each device at the National Fire Agency in Sejong, which was attended by around 50 fire department officials.

Starting this month, the equipment will be delivered to fire stations across the country.

Whereas the company’s previous CSR programs focused on intangible values such as education, Samsung has launched a new program to address serious social problems through technology. It has been dubbed the “Samsung Tomorrow Solution.”

A fire department official took part in the program in 2016 and proposed the idea of developing thermal imaging cameras and telecom equipment. 

The products were completed in 2017 and some pilot units were supplied to fire stations nationwide. And this year, the functions of the cameras and communications equipment have been improved further.

“Under the company’s new CSR vision ‘Enabling People,’ Samsung is carrying out activities that attempt to change the fate of the people and society towards a good direction by using ‘good’ technologies,” a company official said. 

In March, LG Group received attention for its plans to dole out a total of 10,100 air purifiers to elementary, middle and high schools across Korea. The announcement was made amid heightened concerns about the unprecedented levels of fine dust that afflicted the country this past spring.

On Tuesday, the group said it had delivered all the LG air purifiers to 433 schools with a pledge to provide free filter replacements and after-sales services for three years.

LG also said the group would supply artificial intelligence-powered speakers to enable remote control of the air purifiers and air quality management services provided by LG Uplus in the near term.

By Song Su-hyun (song@heraldcorp.com)