SUSTAINABILITY

THE OCEAN CLEANUP IS DEDICATED TO removing plastic from the world’s oceans. It’s a formidable task: National Geographic estimates that 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic, the equivalent of 269,000 tons, float on the ocean's surface.

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Kia is heavily invested in the effort. Since 2022, the carmaker has partnered with The Ocean Cleanup through a variety of methods, helping the organization scale and accelerate cleanup operations. The first three years of the program have been mostly focused on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a large collection of plastics in the Northern Pacific Ocean. “Following the global relaunch of the Kia brand in 2021, and the ensuing announcement of our sustainability movement and carbon neutrality goals, we at Kia global HQ sought to proactively extend our approach to helping ensure a sustainable planet beyond the ongoing innovation of Kia products, services and value chain,” Charles (Chang-Seung) Ryu, senior vice president and head of the global brand and CX Division, Kia Corp., told Newsweek. “The Ocean Cleanup caught our attention due to their bold, clear mission of ridding the world’s oceans of plastic through the deployment of cutting-edge technologies. It became clear quite early on that The Ocean Cleanup’s overarching mission and innovation-driven solutions aligned well with our own commitment