Corporate Social Responsibility

Listen Better

We’ve always been inspired by knowing that music can improve lives — that’s what we aim to deliver for our customers. We’re also acutely aware that our products have an impact on society and the environment. Our approach to responsibility is to deliver the best possible products with minimal environmental impact and maximum benefit to society.

We determine our priority responsibility issues and how to address them by seeking feedback from stakeholders and leading industry experts. We organize our issues under five pillars, shown below. We regularly engage leadership on our responsibility performance and progress and report at least annually to our Board of Directors.

Read our 2020 Report: Listen Better - Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability at Sonos.

The report is an interactive PDF that is best viewed in your web browser or Adobe Acrobat.

Our Products and Experiences

Sonos builds premium sound experiences. To us, premium also means responsible. We develop our products and packaging to minimize environmental impact and we respect and protect our customers’ privacy.

Packaging

We work to meet the expectations of informed, environmentally conscious customers with packaging that delivers a premium unboxing experience sustainably. Our new designs use fewer and better materials without compromising quality.

Packaging

Performance

Paper in product packaging that is sustainably sourced


Goal

Paper in product packaging that is sustainably sourced


Idle Power

We’re focused on reducing our speakers’ idle power, which is the energy consumed when a speaker is connected, but not in use. We look for opportunities in our hardware and software to achieve reductions in idle power across our product portfolio.

Idle Power

Performance

Average idle power across our product portfolio (watts)


Goals

Reduction in idle power


Privacy

We respect our customers’ privacy and only use their data to enhance their sound experience. Our approach to privacy is described in our Privacy Principles, below, which build on our Privacy Statement. Privacy is an ever-evolving issue that cannot be tackled alone. We’re active members of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, the world’s largest and most comprehensive global information privacy community.

We welcome and encourage feedback on our security practices. Through our Security Researcher Recognition program, we recognize individuals who have discovered a vulnerability in our website, services, apps, or players.

We use data to serve our listeners.

We put the listener first, using data to provide incredible sound experiences. Nothing more. Nothing less.

We provide meaningful choices that are easy to understand.

We clearly present information to listeners at the right moment, allowing them to make effective choices.

We collect only what we need.

We believe data decays and loses value over time, so we delete it once it is no longer useful.

We protect the data of our listeners as if it were our own.

We continually seek to improve the security of listener data.

Read our Privacy Statement

Our Supply Chain

Our supply chain is a part of who we are. The way we select our suppliers and the relationship we forge with them reflects our social and environmental principles. Our supplier partnerships are based on mutual understanding of our standards, transparency and a willingness to improve. This includes protecting and respecting the workers who make our products and reducing the environmental impact of product manufacturing.

Supply chain

Performance

Key supplier factories audired annually


Critical and major issues closed within target time

Number of instances of the top nonconformances in 2020

Goal

Key supplier factories audired annually


Critical and major issues closed within target time

Operations

Our Operations

In 2020, we continued our strategy of purchasing carbon offsets to neutralize the greenhouse gas emissions from our facilities’ energy use, achieving carbon neutral operations for the third year in a row. With COVID-19 changing the way we work and reducing the number of people in our offices, our emissions were down 45% to 2,380 metric tons in 2020.

Our Inclusion & Diversity

When people feel they truly belong, they do their best work. They take creative risks and ordinary teams become high performing teams. Mixing a diversity of thoughts and backgrounds with ​a culture built on a bedrock of equity and inclusion can produce unparalleled results. It’s about recognizing that what makes us different, makes us special and that by harnessing those unique perspectives, we create better products, more innovative solutions, and ultimately make Sonos a better place to work.

As of the end of 2020, women accounted for 30% of our global employees, an increase of 3% compared to last year. Among new hires, 41% were women, consistent with the rate in 2019. 22% of director and above positions were held by women. In 2020, 32% of our U.S. employees were ethnically diverse, an increase of 2.5% from 2019. 40% of our U.S. new hires were from underrepresented ethnic groups. 15% of director and above positions were held by talent from underrepresented ethnic groups. For more granular diversity data, please view our 2020 Listen Better report.

Social

Our Social Impact

In a year of change and uncertainty, we continued to support our nonprofit partners with financial grants and product donations so they can provide music education to youth in our local communities. We currently have 11 Sonos Soundwaves partner organizations that provide children in need with opportunities to think creatively, raise academic achievement, develop social skills and prepare for successful futures. This year we have been inspired by the tremendous courage in our communities. The need to heal and build strength has never been greater, with many people experiencing exceptional stress associated with racial justice and COVID-19 — both of which continue as live issues. In 2020, we evolved our Soundwaves program to include ‘Music for Healing and Resilience’. This new group of grantees shares our belief in the power of music to uplift and heal communities.

Music for Healing and Resilience

Giving Back Performance

Hours of music education based on self-reporting by our non profits partners

Giving Back Goals

Hours of music education

Our nonprofit partners

Sonos Soundwaves Nonprofit Partners
  • Drake Music
  • Guitars for Vets
  • Heaps Decent
  • Hush Foundation
  • Jazz Foundation of America
  • Leerorkest
  • Miracles of Music
  • Moxi
  • Notes for Notes
  • Project: Music Heals Us
  • Santa Barbara Symphony
  • Symphony
  • Silverlake Conservatory of Music
  • Sing!
  • SMASH Seattle
  • The Residency: Youth Development through Hip Hop
  • United Borders
  • Urban Arts Partnership
  • Zumix