■ Kumamoto - Board of Directors Meeting

On September 8, we held a meeting of the Sony Group (SGC) Board of Directors, as well as a site visit for outside Directors at the Sony Semiconductor Manufacturing (SCK) Kumamoto Technology Center. These Board of Director site visits usually take place annually, in order to provide outside Directors with a deeper understanding of Sony's business. This site visit was the first to be held in two years, and enabled our outside Directors to view a core facility for our image sensors, which are becoming an increasingly important business.

Wearing a clean suit and receiving an explanation of the manufacturing process in a clean room

Rooftop observation of construction progress of Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing (JASM) *1	With SCK President Yoshihiro Yamaguchi in front of the JASM*1 construction site (background right)

*1 JASM is a semiconductor manufacturing subsidiary of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC). Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation (SSS) and Denso Corporation are minority shareholders.

Together with the Board of Directors (Click the image to view individual names)

CMOS image sensors are key components that support the creation of Kando by creators. At the same time, they can also be said to be technology that captures the real world and "learns" from reality. This concept of "learning" was the central theme of the speech I delivered at the Sustainability Briefing we held the week after this Board of Directors meeting.

■ Tokyo - Sustainability Briefing

At the Sustainability Briefing held at our headquarters on September 15, together with Senior Executive Vice President Shiro Kambe, who oversees Sustainability, and Senior Executive Vice President Kazushi Ambe, who is responsible for Human Resources, I delivered a presentation in which I stated that I would like to make the Sony Group, made up of our approximately 110,000 employees, a company that continues to learn. I emphasized that learning from creators and users enables us to create Kando, and that diverse learning such as that of sensing and AI technology that learns from reality is leading to the growth of Sony and the sustainability of our planet.

At the press conference, we shared details of Sony's initiatives relating to human resources, climate change and AI ethics, and Kambe-san also announced the approval of Sony's net-zero targets by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) ^*2. This is the world's first approval for net-zero targets from SBTi for a major company in the consumer durables, household, and personal products sectors^*3, recognizing Sony's goal to achieve net-zero by 2040 throughout the entire value chain.

In order to make the world, which is the place where Sony pursues its Purpose, sustainable, I hope to continue to value "learning" alongside all of you, so that we can contribute to people, society, and the planet from a long-term perspective.

*2 An international initiative to encourage companies to set science-based greenhouse gas reduction targets in order to limit the increase in the average global temperature due to climate change to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

*3 As of August 24, 2022

Sustainability Briefing (highlight)

■ New York - WEF and Visiting SCA

During the week of September 19, I traveled to New York to participate in the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Sustainable Development Impact Summit, and the Sony Music Global Music Meeting.

At the WEF Summit, I engaged in meetings as a member of the Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, and held discussions with the CEOs of various companies on the progress of initiatives and challenges in halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and achieving net zero emissions by 2050. I was also able to meet with Luiz Amaral, CEO of SBTi, who was participating as a panelist.

During my stay in New York, I stopped by the offices of Sony Corporation of America (SCA), and had the chance to speak with the team there directly. I consider SCA, which functions as our headquarters in the US, the home of our entertainment businesses, to be part of Sony Group Corporation (SGC). And as with SGC, I am counting on everyone at SCA to lead and support the evolution of our businesses. I look forward to the SCA team continuing to support each of the Sony Group's businesses with determination and humility.

With Mark Khalil, President and General Counsel, SCA (center) and
Karen Halby, Executive Vice President, Finance, Accounting and Global Tax, SCA (left)

With the management team at SCA (Click the image to view individual names)

I plan to share details of the SMG event, that I was not able to cover on this occasion, in a separate blog next week.

As always, I look forward to receiving your feedback.