IF WE WANT TO IMPROVE, WE NEED TO START BY MEASURING CORRECTLY
companies from across 22 countries and regions, and 45 industries. The media and entertainment wing of the company is making its own inroads into sustainability, responding to an industry that has listed this as a high priority. A report from industry trade association, the DPP (Digital Production Partnership), outlining the key issues media businesses face listed sustainability as a priority. “What was interesting, however,” notes Rosseel, “is that a DPP round table on this issue admitted there is not a common understanding about what exactly sustainability means – and that we don’t know how to actually measure it. If we want to improve, we need to start by measuring correctly.” Organisations like Bafta’s Albert initiative and CDP have started offering the industry simple and standardised ways of accounting for their environmental impact. Sony is looking into partnering with these bodies to help set up easy ways of measuring carbon emissions and ecological impact. Sony has been a major proponent of cloud working and IP technologies, launching one of the first major film industry cloud services with its Ci platform. Remote working, enabled by cloud and IP, are going to be essential in reducing environmental impact going forward. It’s a simple truth that flying will need to be dramatically curbed, in order to stay safely within survivable carbon budgets. These technologies can curb the need for excessive transport, heavy hardware and idle on-premises hardware. “Cloud won’t make all the difference,” says Rosseel. “But travel is the thing in production that has the
biggest impact. We want to be able to help broadcasters and productions collaborate efficiently using cloud, with less travel and fewer resources needed on the ground.” MATERIALS Sony is a manufacturing company, so innovation around what and how it produces goods is particularly important. R&D on this issue is ongoing and ambitious. The company recently invented a new carbon material, dubbed Triporous, made from rice husks. It offers potential applications in fields such as water and air purification, and industries like textiles. The innovation enables the intelligent use of rice husk waste – which is normally a carbon emitter – by creating a substance with a unique microstructure that makes it a much better filter medium than conventional activated carbon. Sony has also developed a material called Sorplas, made by blending recycled and waste plastics, such as from optical discs and water bottles, with a Sony-developed retardant. The new material can then be used in the production of other Sony products. In its more conventional product line, Sony engineers are finding ways to reduce the use of virgin plastics – and manage materials more efficiently in the hardware they produce. The Sony VENICE cinema camera, for example, was made to be 20% lighter and 40% smaller than its Sony F65 predecessor. Lenses are also lighter, meaning more efficient shipping, as well as reduced raw materials in their manufacture. Well aware that its job is to produce material goods, Sony’s focus is on making those goods as sustainable as possible – and using them to help other companies.
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