and reputation, ethics and compliance, culture of ethics, and environmental and societal impact. This year’s list includes 136 companies from across 22 countries and regions, and 45 industries. Sony’s ‘Road to Zero’ is the company’s environmental plan, striving to achieve a zero environmental footprint throughout the life cycle of products and business activities, across all sectors. Road to Zero was implemented in 2010, when scientists were shouting about environmental emergency, but few companies were paying attention. The plan sets goals from four different perspectives: curbing climate change, conserving resources, controlling chemicals and promoting biodiversity. In keeping with most corporate responses, 2050 was selected as the year when Sony was to become carbon neutral. But realising the gravity of the situation, the company has announced that its targets are to be moved up ten years to 2040. Net zero targets are not deadlines, but signposts. You can’t use loads of carbon in 2039, then go to zero the next year and call that a success. General scientific consensus is that a business’ carbon emissions need to be at least halved by 2030. Sony has already halved its carbon footprint since the beginning of the Road to Zero program in 2010. FINDING SUSTAINABLE BROADCAST 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),
which has outlined the key issues media businesses face, listed sustainability as a primary concern. “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 consequences. 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, is 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 reduce the need for excessive transport, heavy hardware and idle on-premises hardware. “Cloud won’t make all the difference,” says Rosseel. “But travel 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.” MAKING LIVE LIVEABLE In comparison to other parts of the media supply chain, live broadcast still has a way to go in reducing negative impacts. With a big uptake in the world of live broadcast, Sony aims to use its influence to create positive change. One of the big problems with live is accurately quantifying emissions. Without this knowledge and transparency, the impact of sustainable practices are difficult to actually assess, which makes it harder for some companies to justify the changes being made. Travel emissions and on-site power are two of the biggest environmental offenders in live production. Cloud platforms and increasing use of remote production tools are starting to put a dent in the damage they cause. Breaking down workflows into each component part can allow live productions
“Sony’s local european factory at pencoed is now 100% carbon footprint free, and a good part of sony factories are now solar panel powered”
Carbon-footprint-free factories
WE WANT TO HELP BROADCASTERS AND PRODUCTIONS COLLABORATE EFFICIENTLY USING THE CLOUD
to better measure and manage their sustainability responsibilities. This
“modularity” of production means being able to swap in sustainable solutions wherever
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