GTG Links 45 – Nordic Game Conference, Microsoft's Sustainability Miss, Game Hardware News + Euro public showing no sign of a green backlash
Phew! It's been a crazy week here at GTG HQ so let's dive in. Tons of games + tech + sustainability news delivered straight to your inbox.
Are you going to Nordic Game Conference next week? The SGA will be there!
Check out the SGA talk by my colleagues Maria & Jiri if you'll be in Malmö. Sadly I'm staying home here in Australia, but you'll get an update on what we've been working on for the past month and what's yet to come. Very exciting stuff, can't wait for you to see it.
Microsoft's Sustainability report is out
And it's got tongues wagging, though not for the right reasons.
Jamie Thomson
As Bloomberg reports, Microsoft has now missed its (projected) emissions targets three years in a row, with AI & data centre expansion a major contributor. Now I'll be the first to acknowledge that progress on emissions won't always be linear, but I think we are at a point where this is more than a few swings and misses. Are these big one-off emissions increases? Maybe, but do we think AI demand is going to suddenly flatline, or reduce? Something probably needs a rethink here, or for the next six years, Microsoft is going to need to go on the emissions equivalent of a crash-diet.
2020: Microsoft sets goal to be carbon negative by end of the decade.
— Akshat Rathi (@AkshatRathi) May 15, 2024
2023: Microsoft's emissions are 30% higher than in 2020.
Main cause? The relentless push to meet AI demand, which requires carbon-intensive steel, cement, chips.
Story with @dinabass: https://t.co/TP8e9BPvNL pic.twitter.com/w6kglcwFkJ
AAA Graphics
Aftermaths’ Luke Plunkett goes in to bat for changing the existing model of game development - one that relies on “bigger and better graphics” for each new title. The lesson he takes from replaying the Call of Duty series is that we ought to prioritise aspects like design, system and narrative improvements. I agree!
Luke Plunkett
Console sales are down according to AMD
Hmmmmmmmmmm.
Adam Starkey
And some details on the Switch 2 – with cartridge backward compatibility
Hmmmmmmm x2.
Kyle Orland
CFP from Patrick Prax, Clayton Whittle, and Trevin York – a new edited collection on “Sustainable game design: the game needs to change”
In this upcoming publication, we seek to distinguish genuine sustainability efforts from mere green-washing tactics prevalent in the industry. Our editorial team will meticulously review abstract submissions, selecting those with potential to offer substantive insights and practical solutions to the pressing challenges of sustainability in gaming and a compelling vision for how we can achieve a sustainable future.
New research on the cost of climate impacts
This is perhaps the single most important contribution to understanding climate impacts in months – perhaps all year. Super, super important – these findings put the whole inadequate climate economics edifice into stark relief. Compare these numbers to Nordhaus & co's (Nobel Prize winning!!!) models that suggest even 3ºC of warming would have only a small impact on GDP! To anyone not up their own proverbial, this was always totally unrealistic. This work matches far more what the science and simple observation of present levels of warming have started to suggest. There's no growing our way out of 12% global GDP damage per degree of warming.
Climate damages are "6X LARGER than previously thought", says new NBER working paper
— Simon Evans (@DrSimEvans) May 13, 2024
– every 1C wipes out 12% of global GDP
– every tonne of CO2 causes >$1,000 of damages@GernotWagner tells me: "Assuming nobody finds a flaw in this paper, it is going to truly change things" pic.twitter.com/tVxqdXhHhv
New recyclable PCB:
“vPCBs work by replacing most of the PCB material with vitrimer. Vitrimer is best thought of as a highly engineered polymer jelly that can be either solidified to create a PCB or swelled to make it possible to pluck out components for reuse or recycling. With this process, which should be compatible with existing manufacturing processes, researchers were able to recover 98% of the vitrimer and 100% of the glass fiber by recycling a vPCB.”
Christopher Harper
After the jump: green finance research, a massive new report on global forest management, a chart of climate policies and their baked in warming, and Euro public attitudes polling showing no signs of dampening enthusiasm for climate action.