How is Sony making headphones more eco-friendly?

[_J.G.M_]

When choosing a new pair of headphones, it’s important to understand the technologies each model includes and the features you are likely to need, but sustainability is a big factor too.

Road to Zero is Sony’s global environmental plan; our aim is to achieve a zero environmental footprint throughout the life cycle of our products and business activities, creating a better future for the planet, and people.

You’ll notice more and more greener initiatives happening throughout our product lines, and in the headphones department, two of our most popular models this year have already made huge advancements in sustainability.

Plastic-free packaging

The WH-1000XM5 Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones and LinkBuds S both use 100% paper packaging. Zero plastic. This put us ahead of our Green Management 2025 target to eliminate plastic from the packaging of newly designed small products by the end of 2025.

This paper packaging is made from Sony’s own Original Blended Material, comprising of bamboo, sugarcane fibres, and post-consumer recycled materials. By using plants with a short growth cycle like bamboo and sugarcane, less CO2 is generated as they can be grown, sorted, and harvested as needed, rather than the logging and life-cycle care that is required for mature perennial trees, where most paper products come from. Bamboo, sugarcane, and post-consumer recycled materials are all available around Asia’s major manufacturing hubs too, this local sourcing working to reduce emissions.

Our Original Blended Material even reduces the use of ink and colouring. The packaging has a truly organic feel, and text can simply be embossed on the packaging, rather than printed.

And of course, it’s all recyclable.

Our headphones are even made from recycled materials

Both the WH-1000XM5 and LinkBuds S (and even their predecessor, LinkBuds) include recycled materials – automobile parts to be precise!

The challenge with using recycled plastics is that they are typically painted or coloured, making them unsuitable for decorative parts. To solve this problem, we procure unpigmented industrial scrap from automobile parts, which we precisely sort to colour and use in our headphones. Starting with unpigmented pellets minimises the additives required in the colouring process. This enables the use of more than 85%* recycled material in our plastics, and up to a remarkable 98% for black materials!

And we’re just getting started!

You can expect to see a lot more recycled plastic in our headphones going forward, along with plastic-free packaging.

As part of our wide-ranging renewal efforts, we are even changing the outer packaging of existing models from plastic to paper.

*Varies with colour.