Making eco-sense, the Sony way

Not really. It may not be common knowledge, but sustainability concerns are integral to Sony's business operations.

Organisations are increasingly being required to demonstrate environmental responsibility to customers, shareholders, regulatory agencies, investors and their own employees. This realisation and a global corporate policy drove Sony Gulf FZE towards an ISO 14001 certification - the internationally recognised standard for environmental management systems (EMS). Located in the Jebel Ali Free Zone Establishment, Dubai, Sony Gulf FZE is the regional headquarters of Sony Corporation for the Middle East and Africa regions.

In the same way that ISO 9000 series of quality management system standards transformed the way in which industry manages its quality responsibilities, the advent of ISO 14001 series represented the dawning of a new era for companies managing for the environment. Environmental groups are themselves becoming ISO 14001 certified, just as WWF Pakistan very recently, and WWF Switzerland before that.

'Sony Gulf FZE was the first company to get ISO 14001 certification in Jebel Ali Free Zone. This was in April 1999. It was a major achievement for us,' says Santhosh Varma, environmental management representative for ISO 14001 at Sony Gulf FZE.

When the WWF UAE project office was established in2001, Sony Gulf was quick to join as member of its corporate club. 'Sony is a company that takes pride in its initiatives to conserve nature and demonstrate its commitment to sustainability and social responsibility,' continues Varma. 'We are proud to associate with an organisation like WWF, as are our staff and clients, who feel positively about our partnership with an organisation that really cares for the environment.'

Conserving energy and natural resources, encouraging materials reuse and recycling, proper waste disposal, and pollution prevention constitute part of Sony Gulf's environmental policy. Incorporating sustainability into its business model has meant monitoring, recording quantitative environmental indicators and setting clear goals for improvement. These indicators include, among others, volume of waste and recycling, amount of energy used, tons of substances used and energy efficiency of products.

'Additionally, Sony works to ensure that its products can be used in a manner that is least harmful to the environment. It also takes into consideration what will happen to a product after it has lost its usefulness and is ready for disposal,' elaborates Varma. 'Before production begins, Sony addresses these issues through a product assessment process, gauging whether it satisfies the rigorous environmental objectives set forth by the company.' And, because customers are aware of the importance of the company's environmental objectives, market response to its environment-friendly products has been good.

Sony Gulf's conservation initiative is marked by willingness, a sense of purpose, some simple ideas, an attitudinal change and discipline. With ISO certification, environmental awareness amongst employees could be created. They attend training programmes, which aim to teach staff how to reduce the environmental impact of their daily work operations and to encourage voluntary participation in environmental management activities.

At Sony Gulf FZE, waste generated has dropped, as is reflected in fewer garbage collection trips and lower disposal charges. Annual water usage has fallen. Electricity consumption (kwh) has reduced 34.49 % in the period 2000-2003. Reusing packaging material has lowered requirement for fresh packaging. And paper use has fallen by 21.37% in a span of three years (2000-2003).

Elaborating on paper saving Santhosh Varma explains that the company has endeavoured to cut back on its paper use by employing a combination of simple actions such as using both sides of the paper and e-mail for most communication to introduction of web-based systems that have drastically reduced paper consumption for several activities such as approval requests, training programmes, technical enquiries, ordering of spare parts, tracking shipment of materials and more.

Fax machines and printers print on both sides, incoming faxes are routed to the e-mail, manuals are circulated on CD, and recycled paper is used for letterheads, business cards and other such.

These measures form part of the company's process improvement strategy. The environmental benefits have been striking. That there have been fiscal benefits too, is a welcome by-product.