Sony Ericsson

a) The main facts about the activities of the company.

Sony Ericsson is a joint venue between Sony and Ericsson and officially kicked off operations on October 1, 2010. Sony Ericsson?s global corporate functions are located in London but they also have operations in major markets and product development sites around the world, such as Tokyo, Beijing, Lund, and Silicon Valley. Their vision is to become ?THE communication entertainment brand.? Their design philosophy is being human-centered and starts with the customers? needs. Sony Ericsson?s main products are mobiles phones and the Walkman phone introduced them as strong competitors in the mobile phone industry. Their Walkman phone line was popular with teenagers and adults who loved music; the sound quality was exquisite. Most recently, they launched their Xperia line of smartphones calling it the most entertaining smartphones. The latest release is the Xperia Play smartphone which is the world?s first smartphone built for full blown gaming. Furthermore, Sony Ericsson cooperates with the F?d?ration Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), UEFA Champions League, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and Facebook to promote their products and to hopefully become an even bigger force in the smartphone industry.

b) The ethical challenges this company is addressing.

Sony Ericsson considers sustainable development and production to be one of the most important challenges for the future and one that demands immediate action from all responsible manufacturers. They work hard to surpass customer and market requirements from the product design to always being a responsible member of the communities. However, there are still some challenges.
The first challenge is about recycling. Recycling is a good way to protect the environment. Sony Ericsson has designed a good procedure to recycle the materials that are used to be the recovered parts. Their own standards exceed the national’s. It is estimated that in developed countries several hundred million phones a year are collected by independent companies to be refurbished and resold because of revenue. Sony Ericsson supports the principles of reusing, but they are more concerned about the working conditions and the disposal of the electronic waste of the refurbishing facilities. Additionally, because of the poor safety and quality of these refurbished products, they will increase the indirect cost of Sony Ericsson.
Secondly, carbon emission is also a challenge. Sony Ericsson set carbon reduction as a specific amount of kilograms of carbon dioxide. They do not connect the carbon reduction with the sales amount.
Thirdly, about the health and safety, while available scientific evidence does not show any health problems associated with the radio waves from mobile communications, some people express their concerns. These concerns have been addressed by health authorities around the world, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
As a responsible company, Sony Ericsson is trying their best to cope with these ethical challenges.

c) What makes you believe this company is really ethical and why you trust it.

Sony Ericsson has launched a sustainability program which was an important milestone in their life cycle process. Meanwhile, the sustainable thinking and actions were not only implemented on their own daily working and production, but also on influencing the design team, supply chain and partners who are involved in the global recycling system.
Accompanied with the sustainability program were the Greenheart series products which become the center of activities in reducing the carbon emissions from their operation. Some other controlling actions also contribute a lot to the sustainability plan, such as ensuring ethical obtaining throughout the supply chain, and full implementation and operation of their recycling system.
Sony Ericsson holds strong idea to fulfill their commitments on carbon emissions and a products life cycle. Great and practical goals are stated on their website:
? By 2015 reduce the total greenhouse gas emissions from the full
life cycle of Sony Ericsson?s products by 15%*
? By 2015 reduce the total greenhouse gas emissions from Sony
Ericsson?s internal activities by 20% *
Listed below are actions taken by SE that made created great achievements for their sustainability plan as stated on their website:
? Until the second half of 2010, Sony Ericsson took on a new environmentally
conscious packaging concept for their accessory products. They decreased the
size of boxes and the quantity of the packing material.
? Sony Ericsson sets up approximately 500 collection and information
places in eight countries and provides their own collection system for
recycling.
? Until the end of 2010, around 1.5 million units have been collected. The
efforts of quantity collection they did were doubled compared with 2009?s.
? Sony Ericsson takes full use of innovative technology to decrease
consumption of Charges and power, to identify undesirable substances and the
supply chain, to remove hazardous substances from all their products to
protect human health and the environment.

d) The possible challenges facing this company in the future and how you think this company can improve.

As we saw, Sony Ericsson is doing a very good job regarding its GreenHeart project, reducing CO2 emissions and investing in renewable energy. The challenge in this is to keep walking on this road, to keep improving.
Sony Ericsson is aware that its chain of production and the ever increasing portfolio of it’s products involve an increasing environmental impact. So, another challenge can be in the control of the company’s production in order to find a balance between profits and environment protection.
Sony Ericsson?s recycling program face the challenge of finding an alternative to the principle of reuse, which keeps outdated and less safe products on the market; especially when the reuse system is in the hands of independent companies, there is also a concern about the disposal of the electronic waste.
Finally, when it comes to the supply chain corporate social responsibility, Sony Ericsson has already recognized the challenges it poses to modern corporations, so what it’s important for the company now is to put the objectives it identified into practice.