HYBE Takes A Shot At Min Hee Jin For Berating Their Environmental Initiatives

Amidst the ongoing tug-of-war between HYBE and ADOR’s CEO Min Hee Jin, the latter held an urgent press conference on April 25, KST, to present her stance. During the press meeting, Min made many inflammatory claims and comments against HYBE’s internal management.

The same day, HYBE responded briefly to the press conference, denying the accusations. In their response, the company also stated that they did not deem the accusations worthy of a detailed response. On April 26, however, HYBE released another lengthy statement, refuting Min Hee Jin’s claims one by one.

One of the points in the new statement rebuked the ADOR CEO for undermining HYBE’s ESG (environmental, social, and governance) initiatives. During her press conference, Min said that she was the one who brought it up to HYBE, but the management came up with ideas that were not effective.

I told them to do ESG management. Having a sound management isn’t just simply about melting paper. Is this some kind of joke? All paper melts. What kind of joke is this. Instead, they should be printing less albums. Make it so that they print less. Why are they joking about this. In order to create a healthy environment, they need to have and understanding of governance and ownership, a road map on how to run a company. The owner needs to be able to create balance.

— Min Hee Jin

In response, HYBE said that their ESG management activities are designed diligently, and they spend significant money and manpower implementing the technologies for the albums released by their labels.

Regarding the argument to implement ESG management,

We are actively practicing ESG management activities within our capacity. Regarding the eco-friendly albums diligently pursued by the company, Representative Min disparagingly remarked, ‘Melting photocards are a joke.’ Converting the plastic material of digital albums into paper, as well as transitioning album cases and photocards into environmentally friendly biodegradable materials, required significant manpower and costs for the company.

— HYBE

However, they claimed that among all the subsidiaries, it was ADOR that has been the least cooperative with these initiatives.

Embracing and investing in these changes willingly represent ESG management. While we are pushing for the expanded application of eco-friendly albums across all labels under the HYBE umbrella, internal members are well aware that ADOR is the most uncooperative label.

— HYBE

You can read more about HYBE’s statement responding to Min Hee Jin here.