Research from Sony looks into employers’ approach to sustainability in the media and entertainment industry in Europe. Titled Means & Mindset: the state of sustainability in the media industry, the report sheds light on how seriously the industry is taking steps to become more environmentally conscious.

The research, which was conducted using Sony’s own European contact database, was aimed at presenting a realistic view of the industry’s sustainability credentials, which included both positive changes already made, but also the barriers to further, more significant change.

The encouraging news is the research found that while only 40 per cent of businesses cared about being seen as more sustainable, nearly three-quarters of businesses (73 per cent) have implemented operational changes to reduce their environmental impact. The most actioned were reviewing necessary travel requirements and headcount needed on-site (46 per cent and 33 per cent, respectively) and changes to operations while on-location (45 per cent).

Particularly interesting though, was that more than half of respondents didn’t agree that customers, end users or viewers were the driving force for media organisations making changes. Instead, they cited that their organisation’s employees had the greatest influence here.

Means and mindset

While the results show that businesses do care about being seen to be more environmentally friendly, the reality is that barriers getting in the way are as significant as they’ve ever been. It’s because of this that Sony asked what those barriers were.

It’s not a surprise that the financial investment required to be more sustainable as an industry was said to be the biggest barrier by respondents (46 per cent). And cost was also noted by just short of 50 per cent of people to be the reason their company isn’t actively reducing its environmental footprint.

While more than half of people (52 per cent) said that cost is at least sometimes considered in the existing procurement and buying processes, 55 per cent did say that cost is thought to be more important than how sustainable a piece of equipment is.

More surprisingly perhaps, Sony’s research found that industry culture and behaviour was the second biggest barrier both for the wider industry (41 per cent) and individual companies (46 per cent) becoming more active in being more sustainable.

Olivier Bovis, Director, Head of Media Solutions Business at Sony Europe commented: “It’s clear from this research that for the industry to better address environmental challenges, businesses need to invest more into their own sustainability practices. But beyond the financial aspect, we found a change in mindsets is what most needs to take place and that employees felt they had the most impact on making operational changes.  And it’s for that reason that we’re inviting businesses across the industry to use this to their advantage.Sustainability should be considered a currency used to implement changes. We need to be making sure suppliers, partners and users are ‘kept honest’ as part of a movement for change, not just shrug it off because ‘this is how we’ve always done it’.”

Key findings:

• 73 per cent say their employer has made changes to reduce environmental impact
• 71 per cent claim their employer has clear commitments to improving their sustainability
• 43 per cent say their employer is actively investing in sustainability
• The barriers to industry-wide adoption of more sustainable practices:
  • The financial investment required (46.7 per cent)
  • Industry culture and behaviours (41.21 per cent)
  • Availability of sustainable products or services (28.02 per cent)
  • No requirement to be more sustainable (26.37 per cent)
  • No existing industry-wide policies (24.45 per cent)
  • Individual companies’ commitment to sustainability (24.18 per cent)
• 49 per cent of respondents say cost is a significant barrier to their company reducing its environmental impact, with 46 per cent citing industry culture and behaviours
• 52 per cent say sustainability is at least sometimes considered in the procurement process, but 55 per cent prioritise cost over sustainability

Categories: Articles, Consumer Behaviour, Production, Research

Tags: Media, Sony, Sustainability