Sony Shoots for Zero Environmental Footprint

April 9, 2010 – Sony Corporation announced yesterday their official global plan for reaching a zero environmental footprint by 2050 called “Road to Zero,” which outlines a specific set of goals and establishes internal targets to reach by 2015 based on four environmental perspectives and six product life cycle stages.

In reaching the zero footprint goals, Sony is taking a much more systemic view of their business than just products and operations. The companies targets in the “Road to Zero” program are based on four environmental perspectives: climate change, resource conservation, control of chemical substances and biodiversity and six product lifecycle stages: business operations, take back and recycling, Research and development, product planning and design, distribution and procurement. The company will begin monitoring its progress in these areas starting in 2011 and ending in 2015, when it will establish another set of 5 year goals on the road to zero footprint.

Some highlights of the 2015 targets include:

• Reducing weight per product by 10%
• Reducing water consumption by 30%
• Reduce annual per-product energy consumption by 30% from the fiscal 2008 levels
• Increase the waste recycling rate Groupwide to more than 99%
• Develop and refine “3R” (Reduce,Reuse,Recycle) technologies that reduce the use of nonrenewable resources and water and the generation of waste throughout product life cycles

The program being implemented by Sony provides the company with a framework which they can use to organize and evaluate many of their environmental and sustainability initiatives to date. In 2009, the company reduced the amount of packaging included with the purchase of a new DVD by 20% and launched an LCD TV line that reduced energy consumption by 40%.