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

Ben Abraham

30 May 2025 • 7 min read

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 Risk Analysis session happening next week! Can't wait!

And, then later in the month on June 19th we're hosting another great session on Avoiding Greenwashing! Featuring Niklas Kaskeala, Founding Partner of The Activist Agency, Founder of Protect Our Winters Finland, Chairman Pro Vege Finland and Chairman Compensate Foundation – in conversation with Celia Zimmerman, Head of Player Experience at SYBO. Yeow!

We're lining up even more events for the weeks to come – it's another Summer of Sustainability. More soon!

Hasbro's 2024 ESG report came out last week

It reveals that they've continued year-on-year reductions in upstream emissions. [PDF link] Not strictly a digital games company, the amount of real physical "stuff" that Hasbro makes (or its manufacturing partners make) might make this even more impressive, as a result.

SEGA Sammy's FY2024 report

This is not "new" strictly speaking, as I believe it came out in December while I was busy with other work. Owing to the Japanese financial year being from April>March, this data covers more of calendar year 2023, and just the start of 2024. However, it's also the most recent data we have, unless we want to wait until December this year. Such is the challenge with analysing and understanding corporate disclosures across the wide world!

The only thing I wanted to note here is that Scope 1 emissions are down year on year, Scope 2 is slightly up but not substantially and still well below the 2020 level (which seems like its a result of the sale of some part of the company, along with the start of purchasing renewable energy certificates). Scope 3 remains stubbornly on an upward trajectory, however.

Battery measurement and optimisation on the Steam Deck

Some wonderful tips and ideas in here, from artist Hauke Thießen:

Very cool post! Go give it a read.

On the same theme, this comparison of the Windows and SteamOS (Linux) Lenovo handheld reveals just how much better a dedicated gaming OS can be for energy efficiency than bloated old Windows. Makes sense given Windows' long, long history as a general-purpose platform.

And Meta’s Quest VR headset had a rollback of a feature that promised to be a “battery saver” by capping FPS at 45… due to some performance issues?

A year without summer

Continuing to be one of the best resources for analysis and discussion of the basic elements of our climate system, The Climate Brink has a very short and digestible piece on the effect of volcanoes on weather. It is super weird to read some of those descriptions from the “year without a summer” and realise how attractive that would be right about now! 😬

And here's another great piece from the Climate Brink, this time quantifying precisely the amount that climate change is adding to Texan power bills already! Fantastic research:

Summing over the year, we find that the increase in demand combined with the corresponding increase in price raised the cost of wholesale electricity in 2023 by 16%, corresponding to $80 per Texas resident¹.

This is a climate tax we’re all paying. But unlike government taxation that funds public services voters value — like national defense, parks, or deficit reduction — this climate burden provides no benefits to citizens. Instead, these additional costs enrich fossil fuel executives and shareholders, financing luxury excesses while ordinary people shoulder the financial burden of a warming planet.

Research and Resources

There's been a huge amount of new published research that's come across my desk since my last links post, so take a look and see if any of this is RTYI:

Digital humanities climate crisis toolkit

Microsoft has a cradle to grave LCA study of data centre cooling

And to go along with it is an actual publication in Nature (!).

And for a more experiential take on data centres: More Perfect Union has an incredible short doco about what it's like living as neighbour to a data centre.

Unity and its suppliers & their relationship with ESG

Really looking forward to digging into this one. Fascinating stuff for the ESG sickos amongst us. Thanks Brendon for spotting it!

On the challenges of being responsible when you need a new computer

Converting corn fields to solar captures 50-100x more energy

~45% of US corn production is now used to make ethanol, mostly for mixing into gasoline. That's ~13% of all US crop land already used for energy production. Using some of the same land for solar panels would capture 50-100 times more energy per acre.
— Robert Rohde (@rarohde.bsky.social) 2025-05-09T14:15:53.846Z

A good video on the economics behind LFP battery price drops

Critical Minerals

Alex Turnbull (for Australian readers: that’s the son of former PM Malcolm Turnbull) has a really quite interesting and well evidenced post about the importance of the critical mineral Gallium.

Reversible computing?

via Chris Waldon – I was sceptical of this at first, but apparently this is a real technological possibility, with a sound basis in the physics of computation that could produce lower energy devices. “Reversible” computers can potentially save heat (and as a result energy): no loss of information during operation means no conversion of electrical energy (and heat)... veeeery interesting!

Compostable vs biodegradable products

This is a nice little look at what it takes to make products that completely break down.

Thanks for reading Greening the Games Industry – till next time!

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