Sony Recognized as a Leader in Water Resource Management by CDP Report

Sony Corporation (Sony) announced today that it has been included in the CDP’s Water A List,*1 recognizing Sony as one of the highest performing companies in the area of water resource management. This is the third time, following fiscal 2016 and 2017, that Sony has made the Water A List.

Recognizing that Sony’s existence depends on a healthy environment and society, Sony continues to promote environmental initiatives from a long-term perspective. Sony Group has adopted a “Road to Zero” long-term environmental plan that plots a course to a zero environmental footprint for the company’s operations and across the lifecycle of its products, by 2050. Moving toward this vision for the future, Sony set about pursuing its “Green Management 2020” environmental mid-term targets from fiscal 2016, which it aims to achieve by the end of fiscal 2020.

Sony is taking a range of responsible actions at its plants all over the world to preserve local water resources and promote recycling of wastewater in order to achieve its water resource management target of an absolute reduction of 5% in water consumption compared with the fiscal 2015 level. Sony Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation’s Kumamoto Technology Center (Kumamoto TEC), which uses a large volume of water in the semiconductor manufacturing process, is also working to protect local groundwater using a groundwater recharge*2 process and has been recognized*3 as an advanced example of biodiversity conservation.

These initiatives are not limited to Sony Group companies. Sony urges major manufacturing partners to monitor water usage and reduce water use intensity by 1% per year, and these efforts contributed to this year’s Water A List, recognizing the expansion of the Group’s scope of engagement to include business partners.

Sony will continue striving to minimize the environmental footprint of its supply chain, bring forth environmentally conscious products and services, and work to create a better and more sustainable society, toward the achievement of its “Green Management 2020” targets and ultimately an environmental footprint of zero.

The CDP is a nonprofit organization (NPO) founded in the UK in 2000. Backed by investors from around the globe, it conducts surveys on climate change and water management responses at private companies, then analyzes and releases the findings of these surveys to the public. This year, the CDP surveyed over 8,400 companies globally on behalf of more than 525 institutional investors representing more than 96 trillion U.S. dollars in managed assets.

Press release: “Sony Becomes First Japanese Company to Make CDP’s Climate Change A-List for 5 Consecutive Years”
Sony was also included in the CDP’s A List for action on climate change in fiscal 2019 for the 5th consecutive year. This five-year run is a first in Japan. Click here to view the full press release.

• *1:The rating system is a 5-rank scale (A, A-, B, B-, C, C-, D, D-, F). The A List is made up of the companies awarded the highest performance rank of “A.”
• *2:Groundwater recharge refers to the process of water on the surface of the ground (rainwater, river water, etc.) permeating the soil and replenishing the groundwater in the aquifer.
• *3:The Kumamoto TEC groundwater recharge initiative has been noted as an advanced example of water resource protection in publications such as the Annual Report on the Environment, the Sound Material-Cycle Society and the Biodiversity in Japan 2014 published by the Ministry of the Environment in Japan. For more information, please click here.