Telepresence: Sony's Contribution to a better Environment

Telepresence: Sony’s Contribution to a better Environment

Speech held by Naomi Climer, Vice President Sony Europe in charge of Professional
Solutions Europe on the occasion of JBCE’s 10th Anniversary Event

Sony’s Corporate Position
Sony recognizes the importance of preserving the natural environment that sustains life on
earth for future generations and helps humanity to attain the dream of a healthy and happy
life. Sony is committed to achieving this goal by seeking to combine ongoing innovation in
environmental technology with environmentally sound business practices.
“With the ongoing issue of Climate Change, we anticipate the operating power of
electronics products to be reduced to half their existing levels in a few years. I am confident
that our engineers can meet these expectations.” (Sir Howard Stringer, Chairman & CEO
Sony Corporation).
“At Sony we believe that technology need not always be part of the problem ‐ it can be part
of the solution.” (Fujio Nishida, President Sony Europe).

Sony’s commitment and approach – targets
Sony sets targets internally with its Green Management Plan 2010 (GM2010)1, which sets
midterm targets that are applicable globally for the whole Sony group, both for operations
and for products.
Sony commits to external stakeholders to cut CO2 emissions by 7% by 2010 from 2000
levels, to continuously strive to make products more energy efficient, and to promote
energy efficiency, inform consumers on energy consumption of Sony products.
To implement and to monitor the execution of targets, Sony uses a Global Environmental
Management System that is certified and audited by an external party according to the

1
    Sony is currently working on new mid‐term targets beyond 2010

International Standard ISO14001. All Sony group sites2 are covered, including 32 sites in
Europe in fiscal year 2008.

CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions reductions
Between FY2000 and FY2008 CO2 emissions from Sony Europe’s operations have decreased
by ca. 90% or ca. 113.000 tonnes.
Energy saving measures have priority. From FY2005 to FY2008 several energy efficiency
measures have been implemented by European manufacturing sites accumulating to an
energy consumption reduction of ca. 20.000.000 kWh in FY2008.
In FY2008, European sites were powered by electricity from 100% renewable resources.

The European Union has committed to ambitious climate targets:
    •   20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020
    •   20% increase in use of renewable energy by 2020
    •   20% cut in energy consumption through improved energy efficiency by 2020.

So far you have seen in this presentation some exemplary achievements on the reduction of
the energy consumption of processes and products. But we all know that to achieve such
ambitious climate targets, which have by the way been recently echoed and surpassed by
the Japanese government, society must look into new and innovative ways of mitigating
climate change, rather than just reducing power consumption.

What I would therefore like to talk to you about now is the positive impact that our
videoconferencing and telepresence technologies, in particular, are having on our
customers’ businesses and their corporate social responsibility efforts, but also on our
society’s environmental impact. Indeed the reason that ICT technologies are so important
for fighting climate change, namely that the reduction of society’s environmental footprint
that these technologies enable is larger than their own product specific footprint, also
applies to video conferencing.

2
 Sony Group companies with sites with 100 or more employees are required to implement GEMS. GEMS is
certified by BVC according to ISO14001:2004 standard

But first I want to share some figures with you that demonstrate why this technology is so
important.

The average car commute in the UK consumes 56kWh per day according to the statisticians
– that’s 11,760 kWh per year based on 210 working days.

There is definitely a strong argument for businesses to be greener by cutting down on
hydrocarbon use in commuting and business travel. By the way, just one transatlantic return
flight on a 747 consumes 6,000 kWh.

The advent of greater bandwidth combined with richer digital technology has allowed
companies to seriously consider and implement innovation such as teleconferencing and
video conferencing to cut down on travel costs, energy consumption and time.

The leap in quality of the screens, the controllable costs and interactive nature of
teleconferencing means more and more companies are choosing to meet virtually, not only
saving their travel budgets but also helping to save the environment. Videoconferencing is
a far greener alternative to travel by air or road, driving down fossil fuel consumption and
greenhouse gas emissions while reducing congestion on transport networks.

I was particularly pleased to see last week that Viviane Reding, the EU's information society
commissioner, announced a proposal to cut private business trips by 20%, replacing them
with video conferencing. This could "save more than 22 million tons of CO2 per year,"
[according to one Commission official.]

Sony provides several telepresence and videoconferencing technologies that consider these
aspects while also suiting different types of businesses and communications. Here is a quick
summary:

•    Desktop systems allow you to see and speak to colleagues and customers anywhere
       in the world, right from your desk.

   •   Conference room solutions enable multimedia videoconferencing for groups

   •   Recently, a range of unique 3D Telepresence solutions have also become available –
       these offer real eye‐to‐eye contact and 3D projection of the remote site, so you really
       do feel like you are meeting in person.

This last point is really important. Much of the early criticism of videoconferencing
technologies was about its inability to recreate the nuances of face‐to‐face meetings.

Sony Telepresence elevates remote conferencing to an ultra‐realistic level. By ‘projecting’
remote colleagues into a meeting room, the system delivers three‐dimensional in‐room
presence and enables real eye‐to‐eye contact.

Telepresence gives businesses and organisations the ability to hold multi‐site meetings where
all the participants have the feeling that they are actually in the same room. The advantages
over traditional videoconferencing and Telepresence systems are:

   •   See eye‐to‐eye – with real eye‐to‐eye contact, remote participants can engage with
       each other much more intimately and meaningfully than has previously been possible.
   •   Body language – the life‐size, three‐dimensional ‘projections’ ensure that
       communication is far more than verbal. Just as in same‐room meetings, body language
       is visible for all to see, interpret and react to. This leads to more open and transparent
       exchanges and, ultimately, more informed business decisions.
   •   Get closer – by creating previously in‐room presence, Telepresence promotes stronger
       working relationships.

Telepresence is also incredibly important at driving down costs and reducing CO2 emissions

from unnecessary travel. Telepresence eliminates the need for many of the meetings that
would previously have been considered to require personal attendance. The criticism that
videoconferencing does recreate the subtleties of a face to face meeting no longer apply.

One company that has derived significant business and environmental benefits from using
our Telepresence technology is global management consultancy firm Capgemini, which
employs over 90,000 people working a multiple countries. With so many people working on
consultancy projects together, communication between offices and geographies is essential.

To promote the cooperation between the local front offices and the back offices in India
while also trying to reducing the amount of travel its consultants were doing, Capgemini was
looking for a videoconferencing system that would give physically separated teams the
feeling that they were in one and the same room.

CapGemini has found that it is possible to promote effective collaboration without
damaging your business culture or the environment. Businesses worldwide are using
technology such as video conferencing and Telepresence to drive efficiencies and reduce
costly and damaging travel.

In conclusion, sustainability is not just about being green, after all – it makes very good
business sense. At Sony we are producing solutions to help Europeans reduce the number of
business trips, we are making a huge impact to costs, to quality of life and making our
contribution to hitting the EU and International targets for sustainability. We are also
running projects in Europe and worldwide that address wider Corporate Responsibility
Issues.

   •      As part of our Climate Change initiatives, we are supporting an innovative children’s
          project called ‘Forest Guard’ which uses remotely controlled, solar powered camera
          technology to develop an early detection and warning system for potentially
          catastrophic forest fires.

By combining Sustainability, energy efficiency and corporate social responsibility efforts we
can all make a big difference.

Telepresence, by adding the key human experience of eye to eye presence in video
conferencing, is a prime example of sustainability, where reducing environmental impacts
go hand in hand with good business sense. At Sony we are producing solutions to help
Europeans reduce the number of business trips, we are making a huge impact to costs, to
quality of life and making our contribution to hitting the EU and International targets for
sustainability.

By doing so, we help European society to achieve the European Union’s climate goals.

ENDS