December 14, 2022
Sony Corporation (SEC) is promoting activities to meet group environmental mid-term targets from fiscal 2021 to 2025 “Green Management 2025,” and one initiative is to eliminate plastics in packaging for newly designed small products, while another is to reduce the amount of plastic packaging per product by 10%.
To date, we have already reduced plastic in individual packaging for many recent small products. We hope you will take a look and feel the packages for a tangible sense of this environmental progress.
Alpha 7 IV full-frame interchangeable-lens camera bodies are now packaged in a non-woven bag made mainly of plant cellulose*1 instead of a non-woven plastic bag. Similarly, parts such as batteries and cables are also packaged in this kind of non-woven fabric bag or one made of paper instead of plastic. Even bands for straps and cables are now made of paper instead of plastic, and we will continue to reduce more plastic in individual packaging.
For more than 130 camera accessory models, packaging has already been changed from blister packs to paper.*2
Camera accessories have a long model life, and details such as packaging structure and design vary depending on when the product was released. Our first step in reducing the plastic used was to make complete overview of the more than 130 accessories. To prevent confusion among retailers and consumers, we avoided changing the packaging too aggressively. While keeping the same design and structural concepts to some extent, we came up with authentic Sony packaging design that was also environmentally conscious.
Yusuke UramotoOur efforts to eliminate all plastic packaging for camera accessories involved switching from blister packs to paper boxes, and from plastic bags and pouches to plant-based non-woven fabric bags or paper ones. This reduced plastic consumption considerably, with more than 1.4 million units shipped in the new packaging in fiscal 2021 (April 2021–March 2022). Some of the challenges we took on included making paper cartons as rigid as plastic, giving people a good idea of how the product inside looks, and establishing or selecting specifications for protective bags. Overall, we sought environmental improvements while designing packaging that consumers would not hesitate to pick up, just as before.
Michiyo Yokomori
