Greening the Games Industry

Sweating for digital waterfalls; PS5s out of China; Bad reception on fast trains; and exploding coal turbines! It's GTG Links 65

Greetings, GTG readers – I trust those of you in the northern hemisphere are making the most of the late summer vibes; meanwhile, in Melbourne, spring almost sprung. I know because I was swooped by the world's most aggressive magpie today. Lots more data centre details, some history, some

Why do we care about sustainability?

Greetings, GTG readers – it’s Gamescom week, and everyone’s been busy looking at new game announcements, workshops and things like that. We (the SGA) ran a workshop at Devcom that road-tested some of our newest SGA Standard tools and got attendees hands-on with them to try and understand the

Efficient everything: PS5s, game engines, downloads! Plus: NCSoft GHG mysteries & Europe's first solar barge – GTG Links 64

Hello! It seems like everyone but me has been on holiday recently, but I've been head down and working hard – more exciting new updates to the SGA Standard coming very soon, with lots of potential to measure and reduce emissions across the game industry. I've also

How do we measure the carbon footprint of installing & updating games?

This week, we’ve released a new component of the SGA Standard – covering what the Greenhouse Gas Protocol calls Scope 3.9: Downstream transport and distribution. There are two key features to activities that fall into this category: 1) it has to be an activity that is involved in getting

A flying update – plus digging into Ubisoft & Rovio ESG reports; how to embed sustainability in an org; more extreme weather; and the fascinating engineering of the PET bottle

Greetings, friends and fellow games sustainability nerds. It's been weeks since I've done a proper post for GTG, and I am feeling the itch. But I'm not quite ready to share more of the work that's kept me so busy and away

Crunchy CSRD data, Switch repairability, GHG protocol updates, & zombie fires emerging in Canada… It’s GTG Links 62

Greetings! We’re back for another look at the key sustainability developments from the games industry and the wider world. But first… The Sustainable Games Alliance invites you to join Ubisoft’s Andrea Carrara, Ad Net Zero’s Anthony Falco, and me for a meetup discussing the role of emissions

How do you measure the energy consumption of a mobile phone?

Mobile phones are really incredible devices. They’re some of the most efficient computers that we have, with a decade-plus of engineering that’s gone into making sure they use as little (battery) power as possible, while simultaneous developments in battery technology have also improved how much we can cram

Steamdeck & Lenovo battery optimisation, Hasbro & SEGA ESG, reversible computing, & more ... it's GTG Links 61

It's been a while since we've had a links post, and the links, they don't stop coming – so let's get stuck in! Lots to share and discuss. Before we get there: here's your final reminder to register for our Climate

ESG in China: Alive and well in games and tech?

You don’t have to be a close reader to know that corporate social responsibility in the form of ESG (environmental, social and governance) disclosures has suffered setbacks of late. That might even be putting it too mildly. Since January, the second Trump administration has attacked DEI (diversity, equity and

Preparing for Change: Climate Risk Analysis in the Games Industry

A couple of newsletters ago, I wrote about CDProjektRED's latest ESG report, with its highly detailed and illuminating analysis of the studio's understanding of its exposure to physical climate risks across different time horizons. Long time GTG readers will know that I've been encouraging

Switch 2 emissions (embodied & use-phase), solar Minecraft, architecture of the Kyoto Protocol, + more – GTG Links 60

Trying to sneak this one out because I've had a lot of this in the backlog and just haven't had a chance to post it yet – [and I was in such a rush I didn't even finish the intro! Nevermind...!] I haven't

Does software use energy directly, or indirectly?

Here’s a question for you. When you boot up a game on your console, your PC, or your mobile phone, what is actually happening? I think a basic description might be something like this. A game (like any software) starts with a series of instructions sent to the CPU,

GHG emissions of films, games and… airports?

There was a story in the Guardian earlier this month that caught my eye: “Disney’s Snow White had higher carbon emissions than the latest Fast & Furious film”. This sort of comparison is possible thanks to the publication of GHG disclosures by Disney associated with the production process. But

ESG Season (CSRD season?) Kicks Off – plus it's GTG Links 59 feat. mobile phone charger research and climate-friendly whales

If you've been following the news around corporate sustainability rules you'll probably be aware that the European Union's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) has started to require particularly large companies to undertake an extensive new reporting process this year. The first out of the

How much could one game industry worth of CO2 cost?

Hello! It's GDC week, so you're probably inundated with news to catch up on – so this one's nice and short. I didn't attend the Game Developers Conference in person this year, however, I did send a video to a fantastic panel called

EU Omnibus: What does it mean for Euro game sustainability? + GTG Links No.58

Hello, we're back after a skip week. And that's because last week the EU Commission dropped a very late, late breaking proposal to change the rules for a bunch of sustainability legislation – from the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) that sets the scope of companies that

What’s the biggest bang-for-your-buck GHG reduction in games – and how do we find out?

One of the perennial challenges for those of us working on decarbonisation in the games industry has been getting a clear and complete big-picture view of the impacts games have on the planet. Without that, we have had to rely on guesswork and the experience of other industries, which can

GTG Links 57 – Beaver Dams, Power Plants, and Important Climate Education Research

It has been a minute since the last news update – and yet, it's a bit of a short one this time. I'm sure that will change very soon as we're heading into ESG reporting season, so we can expect new data and disclosures any

Quick update on European sustainability reporting & what’s new at the SGA

One of the main reasons the SGA exists is to help make life easier for the European games industry and its reporting obligations under the CSRD. This means understanding and implementing the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). I’ve written about how complex I find this system and how ambivalent

GTG Links 56 – Switch 2 power use, 20 million tons of GHGs from chipmakers, wild weather effects, and more

Welcome back to the first GTG Links of 2025. Lots to catch up on since we haven't done a links post in over a month, so no time to waste. Switch 2 This is a bit of old news now, but worth looking at from the sustainability angle.

What’s going on with Nvidia GPUs and PC gaming power consumption

Welcome back, I hope you had a great break, ate some yummy food and enjoyed some time off. Unfortunately, the climate never takes a break, and as I write the multiple fires still threatening large parts of Los Angeles are at the forefront of my mind. Sending all my best

GTG Links 55 – Look ma, I'm in the Post!

Welcome back. We're in the Washington Post today talking about how, while extremely good, energy efficiency in gaming does not get us to 100% net zero emissions on its own. Maybe that's obvious? Maybe it's not! We also need more more more renewable energy

How does the typical game developer get to work?

If you follow my work with the Sustainable Games Alliance on LinkedIn (or on our discord – which you should join), you’ll have already seen that we recently announced the completion of a new component of the SGA Scope standard. As a quick refresher, the SGA standard is a set

GTG 54 – UK exits coal, Swedes get a new carbon calc tool, solar panels in unexpected places, and gaming w/ clean power

Grab your favourite beverage, pull up a chair, and get comfy because we've got almost a whole month's worth of links for you today. Things found amongst the rubble in Lebanon CleanPlay wants to sign gamers up for renewable electricity plans Rich Hillerman and David Helgasson

Climate is economics is political economy is climate

I’m back, at last. I had a thing planned to write here over the last few weeks, but the main findings were “non-conclusive”, so I haven’t written them up. Instead, I wanted to express some slightly vague ideas and gesture at some big challenges that are constantly on