Sony Corporation Global Headquarters
Sony sites worldwide are taking steps towards a zero environmental footprint from the four perspectives in our Road to Zero environmental plan. Environmental performance of business operations is also carefully evaluated in the Sony Green Star Program.
Protecting local biodiversity is a goal Sony pursues worldwide. Read how Sony Semiconductor Corporation's Oita TEChnology Center (Oita TEC) supports loggerhead turtle conservation.
Oita TEC on the southern coast of Kyushu has shown good community spirit for more than 20 years by voluntarily cleaning up nearby beaches. Each year prior to the opening of the beach, employees gather to pick up litter along the shore. The ongoing commitment has helped keep the coastline relatively free of trash, and their effort was rewarded in 2009 with the return of endangered loggerhead turtles coming back to breed. Although the turtles breed elsewhere along the Oita coast, the fact that this was their first return here in decades made it remarkable. After this, Oita TEC expanded cleanup area by calling on other local companies to join them in welcoming the turtles back to clean beaches. The community-supported cleanup has made a difference in two consecutive years of confirmed spawning and hatching nearby, in 2011 and 2012.
Although cleanup is voluntary, nearly all employees join in
Three truckloads of litter were collected
A beautiful stretch of shoreline along Kurotsuzaki
Oita TEC also helps protect turtle eggs during incubation. In the wild, unborn turtles face many hazards before they hatch, and protecting them takes considerable effort and expertise. That's why the volunteers at Sony work with a local committee under the guidance of a nonprofit organization dedicated to turtle conservation. Volunteers keep a watchful eye on breeding areas and protect the hatchlings until they safely reach the ocean.
These sites are difficult to notice, because adult turtles spawn in safe areas, hidden from predators. Discovered in 2012 by a local resident walking on the beach.
Once the breeding grounds are found, they are covered with nets to protect them from other wildlife such as birds or stray dogs.
Warnings are posted to prevent people from accidentally disturbing the breeding grounds. Volunteers visit the area regularly until the young turtles hatch.
A couple months after spawning, when the nests have collapsed a little, it's finally time for hatching.
Local residents, including children, join in to watch the young turtles. The hatchlings usually return to the ocean at high tide, when their journey is easier.
Many hatchlings crawl to the ocean together, increasing their odds of survival.
