Sustainability: Sony Group Essay Example

style="text-align: justify;">Also the impact is diluted because limited budget is distributed towards different charities but this doesn’t mean that philanthropy is a bad thing. CRS Risk Management should be incorporated into business plan. You should demonstrate how incorporating these value will show stronger financial performance and profitability. CSR Investment will “improved relations with the investment community and better access to capital. ” (Willard, 2005) Sustainability is everything we need for survival that is directly or indirectly affects the world’s environment.

One aspect of sustainability is determining the difference between what we need and what we want. Another aspect is how we as society and corporations affect the environment by either pollution, usage of natural resources, social justice, etc. We have a social responsible to making sure that we have and will continue to have the resources we need to insure human health and our environment. There are different ways to measure our sustainability like sustainability reports, environmental sustainability index, also recording the world population and compare it to the carrying capacity of earth.

U. N. Global Compact is a “strategic policy initiative for businesses that are committed to aligning their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption. ” (Idrisi, 2011) U. N. Global Compact follows ten principles that are divided into four categories Human Rights, Labour, Environment, and Anti-Corruption. The Cities Programme is aim to improving urban life in cities throughout the world. This program has three levels of engagement signatory, reporting, and innovating.

Some criticisms about this program are that there is no effective monitoring or enforcement due to the

fact that we don’t have the resources to monitor every participant. Triple bottom line is an accounting framework that incorporates three dimensions of performance: social, environmental and financial. (Slaper, 2012) Now the question is how do you measure these three dimensions. Using the monetization system is one way but it is difficult to put a numeric value to something like the environment; there is room for lots of ambiguity.

There isn’t a real standard to the triple bottom line for example one company can set their standards higher than others but does that mean the other companies aren’t using the triple bottom line. ISO 26000 is an International Standard for Social Responsibility. ISO has defined seven principles of social responsibility, Human Rights, Labour Practices, The Environment, Fair operating Practices, Consumer Issues, and Community involvement and development. This standard shows how organizations can implement these social responsibility principles like identification of legal and voluntary requirements and processes of stakeholder consultation. It also gives guidance on integrating, implementing, and promoting socially responsible behavior throughout the organization, and more broadly through its policies and practices. ” Research on Sony Group I started my research at their company site sony.net. There I found all the material I needed but I also verify their information through various other sites. Sony Group is the child company of Sony Corporation, which is based in Japan. Sony Group focuses on the Electronics, Gaming, and Entertainment. Sony Group’s aim is to revolutionize the world's technology.

In May 2003, Sony Group created a Code of Conduct that all Sony Group employees must follow. This code of conduct reflects the principles within these organizations:

OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, United Nations Global Compact, United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Nippon Keidanren Charter of Corporate Behavior. They also have ISO 14001 and ISO 26000 certifications.

Research Findings

Sustainability Practices Sony and I have a personal relationship

I love their products and they love my money. I always thought that they were somewhat aware of how their product affects the environment. The PlayStation console is an example of how they try to be environmentally conscious. About every five to eight years they create a new PlayStation console and a year or two later they make a slim version of it. This Slim version has all the capabilities of the regular PlayStation but it is smaller, uses less energy, and costs less. However, this isn’t the only way Sony Group has been trying to become more sustainable. In 2000, Sony Group calculated the amount of gas emissions, waste created, water used, and chemical substances that were being produced from building sites. Their building sites were producing a total of 2.28 million t-CO2, 193,000 tons of waste, used 24.18 million m3 of water and 2,906 tons of chemical substances. Also the electronic products they made were producing 17.834 million t-CO2 from electricity consume by products. Sony Group believing it was their corporate social responsibility to reduce their sustainability, they created environment project called Green Management 2010 that was implemented in 2006. Reframing states that organizations are complex because they are populated by people whose behaviors are hard to predict.

Also organizations are surprising, Sony Group ook a leap of faith when implementing this program. The outcome of this

project could hurt their profit line and show no results. The Green Management plan wanted to reduce carbon emissions by 7%, reduce waste generate by 40%, and reduce water usage by 20%. I wasn’t able to find exactly how much they wanted to reduce chemical substances. They wanted to reduce the amount of emissions produce from their products electricity consumption. They had individual goals for each of their products. Sony Group Environmental Vision (2007).

In fiscal 2006, Sony’s greenhouse gas emissions totaled approximately 20.3 million tons, up approximately 17% from fiscal 2005. Sony’s eco-efficiency index was 0.99 times the level in fiscal 2000. The increase in greenhouse gas emissions was due primarily to two factors: a change in the definition of greenhouse gas index that resulted in the inclusion, beginning in fiscal 2006, of CO2 emissions from logistics, and an increase in CO2 generated during product use of approximately 16%, attributable to increases in the size of liquid crystal display (LCD) televisions, and the number of sets sold. (p. 5) On July 26, 2011 Sony announce that they surpass their targets goals from the Green Management 2010.

They were able to reduce carbon emissions from their building sites by 31%, which was way over their 7% goal. Also they reduce waste generated by building sites by 54% and reduce water usage by 41%. In addition, they were able reduce annual electricity consumption of their product by 100% within each category. Stakeholder Analysis I believe the two major stakeholders would be customers and the environment. Both stakeholders and Sony want products that are efficient, clean, cheap, and beneficial to our lives. However sometimes because

of the price of electronics, customers and Sony will go against the environment.

Customers thought process is who cares I just want the latest electronic for a cheap price, so to reduce the price Sony could be less environmental because being environmental cost a lot and Sony wants to satisfy their customers (and make a profit). I think that both the stakeholders and Sony can work together to achieve their goals. Sony can make more energy efficient products, which will help the environment and when a customer goes to buy these products it will save them money in the long run because the product is more efficient, in turn making customers want to buy more of Sony’s product. Internal and external influences Some external influences that drive Sony Group to do the green initiative would be some of the organizations that they are affiliated with like the WWF. Through the Climate Savers Programme, leading corporations collaborate with the WWF to establish targets for reducing absolute emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. (WWF Canada Footprint Reduction, 2012) Also Sony Group code of conduct is influenced be organization like the U. N. Global Compact, I wasn’t able to find Sony in the U. N. ’s database list of participants but I did find that they do sometimes attends seminars an events. Some internal influences would be the profits they can make in the long run. The more efficient an organization is in managing their resources, the less money they need to spend on replace those resources. Also creating good relationships with the communities to improve reputation and branding. In Japan Sony Group has created a number

of program for the like ‘PlayStation’ Science Program which shows student how Sony applies science and mathematics to their products.

The Folding@home is a program within the PlayStation 3 that distributes you computing network from your PS3 and sends it to Stanford University Folding@home network to support medical researchers understanding of the nature of serious diseases. I think a major internal influence to Sony’s way of thinking would be their new CEO Sir Howard Stringer. Howard is the first foreigner to run Sony and he is able to give Sony a new perspective on things without comprising their culture.

Conclusion

I believe that Sony Group should continue down this path of sustainability and not abandon it just because they reach their goal. The Green Management 2010 shows the amount of effort to identify the problem and create solutions to deal with it. We have discussed how Sony Group affects our lives and environment by using sustainability concepts and how they are applied to the real life example The Green Management Example. We explored some internal and external influences that drive Sony Group; also how stakeholders influence their decision making. Corporations have the choice to either help the environment and have good sustainability or continue to pollute the environment just to make a little extra money.