Sony ESG/Technology Briefing FY2020

Today, Sony Corporation (hereafter Sony or the Company ) held its ESG/Technology Briefing for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021 (FY2020).

Sony defines its purpose as to fill the world with emotion through the power of creativity and technology, and its management direction as getting closer to people. The Company explained the long-term perspective of its contribution to society and the global environment centered on people, as well as various initiatives in technology that will bring these to fruition.

Highlights from the presentation are available below. For further details, please refer to the related material[SM1] from the event, which will be made available on Sony's corporate website.

1.Technology-related Strategy and Initiatives

Technology is one of the most important material topics that support Sony's long-term value creation, along with Employees .

Under the management direction of getting closer to people, Sony is working on technology that gets closer to motivation of people, that is, the motivation of creators and users.

By further strengthening the collaboration between each business and corporate R&D, and deploying technology throughout Sony Group, an environment has been established in which true synergies can be created between businesses. Sony will further expand R&D themes in the fields of entertainment and finance so that technology can contribute to Sonys diverse businesses.

About 10% of R&D's annual expenses of approximately 500 billion yen are used for corporate R&D, and this ratio is kept relatively constant every year from the perspective of financial discipline. Up to 5% of corporate R&D expenses are allocated to long-term basic research themes in order to flexibly respond to changes in trends in the medium to long term.

Sony is actively carrying out personnel rotations in Japan and overseas. Sony promotes building a system with awareness of diversity and globalization, such as through establishing new overseas R&D bases in India and Shenzhen, China.

Sony is contributing to entertainment and the safety and assurance of people amidst a new normal with its 3R technology, which adds Remote to Sony's strengths of Reality and Real-time . Specifically, Sony will strive to provide values with 3R technology in a variety of fields, including virtual production, AI, imaging & sensing, and life sciences.

Sony is contributing to the realization of a sustainable society through technology. In addition to the joint development of a satellite incorporating Sony's camera system with the University of Tokyo and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), with the aim of creating new entertainment in space, Sony is also working on projects to monitor (sense) the global environment with high-performance and low-power consumption systems on chips (SoCs), AI tools, and low-power wide-area network (LPWA) technology to realize not only the coexistence of people and people, but the coexistence of people and the environment that surrounds them

2.Environmental Initiatives

Under its Road to Zero long-term environmental plan, Sony aims to achieve a zero environmental footprint by 2050.

As of fiscal year-end 2019, Sony has reduced annual energy consumption of products, reduced greenhouse gas emissions at business sites, and expanded use of renewable energy under the medium-term targets Green Management 2020, which were set to be achieved by fiscal year-end 2020.

Sony has formulated Green Management 2025, the medium-term environmental targets for the next five years. At the same time, the Company set climate change targets to be achieved by fiscal year-end 2035, which has been approved as a 1.5 C target of Science Based Targets .

The newly established corporate venture capital fund Sony Innovation Fund: Environment will nurture ventures specializing in environmental technology. The Sony Innovation Fund: Environment will continue to search, both internally and externally, for technologies that help solve environmental issues and ventures that hold those technologies, and will provide support for commercialization.

Sony contributes to the global environment from a long-term perspective through various businesses and technologies that utilize decentralized sensing, such as mobility, intelligent vision sensors, and REON POCKET.

*For further details of Green Management 2025 and the Sony Innovation Fund: Environment, please refer to the separate press release issued today.

3. Social initiatives

Sony established Sony Global Relief Fund for COVID-19, a 100 million US dollar fund to support those around the world affected by the expansion of COVID-19. Mainly in the fields of medical, education, and creative communities, Sony made donations and various support activities through business and technology.

*For details of the Sony Global Relief Fund for COVID-19, please refer here.[SC(2]

Sony established the Global Social Justice Fund , a 100 million US dollar fund to support the growing anti-racism and social justice movements worldwide. Sony continues to support donations to organizations working to protect human rights while promoting awareness among communities both inside and outside of the Company.

Under the Sony Supply Chain Code of Conduct , Sony will continue to address further issues such as human rights and the working environment in the electronics supply chain.

4.Governance Initiatives

As part of ongoing efforts to strengthen the group's global management and corporate governance, Sony has further diversified the experience, expertise, gender and internationality of the members of its Board of Directors. Additionally, Sony provides further information regarding the experience and expertise of each Outside and Non-executive Director in its Corporate Report and Sustainability Report for the fiscal year 202

LINK:	https://presscentre.sony.eu/pressreleases/sony-esg-slash-technology-br...
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