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The environmental NGO Greenpeace launched a number of direct action events targeting Samsung Electronics on Jan. 30, including beaming a message onto the side of the Samsung campus in Giheung, Gyeonggi province, hanging a huge banner on the outside of the Berlin Palace, and demonstrating outside of the company’s showroom in Taipei. The campaign, which is encouraging the company to show global leadership in combating climate change by increasing its use of renewable energy, took place just a week before the opening of the Pyeongchang Olympics, of which Samsung is an official sponsor. Pledges by the Pyeongchang Olympics Organizing Committee to use renewable power for the first time during the Olympic games have placed a spotlight on the environmental records of the official sponsors, and Samsung’s carbon emissions have increased by 45% since the Sochi Olympics in 2014.

Lee In-sung, the director of Greenpeace’s Information Technology Campaign at the Seoul office stated, “As Samsung’s electricity consumption is growing at a rapid pace, it is very important and urgent for them to shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy. This issue is directly linked to the survival of a company in the carbon-zero economic era.”