--- title: How Video Game Companies Are Going Green description: Video game designers and console manufacturers can take steps to make gaming less electricity-intensive. canonical: https://time.com/6696736/sustainable-video-game-companies/ author: Will Henshall article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-03-04T15:55:53.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-30T13:21:35.742Z article:section: Climate og:title: How Video Game Companies Are Going Green og:description: Video game designers and console manufacturers can take steps to make gaming less electricity-intensive. og:url: https://time.com/6696736/sustainable-video-game-companies/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt66434bb4e1b13101/698a4906db2987352b26a44f/Gaming-going-green-illo.gif?branch=production&width=1000&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1000 og:image:height: 563 og:image:alt: Gaming-going-green-illo og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Video Game Companies Are Going Green twitter:description: Video game designers and console manufacturers can take steps to make gaming less electricity-intensive. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt66434bb4e1b13101/698a4906db2987352b26a44f/Gaming-going-green-illo.gif?branch=production&width=1000&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- # How Video Game Companies Are Going Green > Sponsored content. 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Future Proof is TIME's weekly climate and energy newsletter, written by senior correspondent Justin Worland. It connects the energy transition to the decisions reshaping business, technology, policy and markets. #### Where can I follow the energy transition as a business story? Future Proof covers climate and energy as an economic and business story rather than only an environmental one. It publishes every Friday and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes Future Proof? Justin Worland, a senior correspondent at TIME and an award-winning climate journalist, writes Future Proof. #### Is Future Proof free? Yes. Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: How Video Game Companies Are Going Green [Watch (HLS stream): How Video Game Companies Are Going Green](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/tTHYX0oi.m3u8) (5:22)  _Published 2024-02-16. Major gaming companies like Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation have pledged to reach net zero goals by 2030. They have also joined together with the Playing for the Planet Alliance to take steps toward sustainability._ Mar 4, 2024 3:55 PM UTC by [Will Henshall](https://time.com/author/will-henshall/) and [Video by Lisa Nho](https://time.com/author/lisa-nho/) Mar 4, 2024 3:55 PM UTC Some 30 years ago, graphics processing units (GPUs) were [invented](https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/chasing-pixels/nvidias-geforce-256) to support the increasingly sophisticated graphics of computer games. Today, gaming still accounts for the majority of GPU usage, ahead of [AI](https://time.com/6271657/a-to-z-of-artificial-intelligence/) and [crypto mining](https://time.com/6590155/bitcoin-mining-noise-texas/). But these specialized semiconductor chips are incredibly [energy-hungry](https://time.com/collection/davos-2024-ideas-of-the-year/6551988/ai-predictions-2024/) because of the vast amounts of computation they carry out. So, when you boot up your console or your souped-up gaming PC, it might be sucking up more electricity than you had imagined. And that’s not it. Manufacturing these chips requires vast amounts of electricity—the world’s leading chip manufacturing company, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, [accounts](https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/31/energy-taiwan-semiconductor-chips-china-tsmc/#:~:text=TSMC%20alone%20accounts%20for%20more,just%20between%202020%20and%202022.) for more than 6% of Taiwan’s energy consumption. Mining the minerals required for these chips, manufacturing the other components, and transporting them around a complex global supply chain all adds up. A [study](https://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/insights/sustainability/the-environmental-impact-of-a-playstation-4/) by researchers at the University of Cambridge found that 89 kg (196 lbs) of carbon are emitted with the manufacture and transport of each PlayStation 4—that’s equivalent to the emissions from a gas car driving 228 miles. As of June 2022, more than 117 million PlayStation 4s have been [sold](https://sonyinteractive.com/en/our-company/business-data-sales/) since they were released in 2013. Last year there were an [estimated](https://newzoo.com/resources/trend-reports/newzoo-global-games-market-report-2023-free-version?utm%5Fcampaign=2023-08-GMRF-GGMR%202023%20free%20report&utm%5Fsource=email&utm%5Fmedium=GGMR%202023%20Press%20Embargo&utm%5Fterm=GGMR%202023%20Press%20Embargo&utm%5Fcontent=GGMR%202023%20Press%20Embargo) 3.3 billion video game players around the world, according to market research firm Newzoo. Even if the contribution of each individual gamer is small—a couple hundred grams of CO2 per hour of play on average, plus emissions from device manufacturing—the total emissions from the gaming industry is significant. In 2019, gaming generated 24 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide in the U.S. alone—equivalent to the annual emissions from over 5 million cars—according to an [estimate](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40869-019-00084-2) produced by researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. What can gaming companies do to reduce this figure? On the manufacturing side, console makers face the same challenges as all manufacturers do with complex global supply chains: wrangling their suppliers and trying to press them to take steps toward sustainability, says Ben Abraham, who researches the environmental impact of the games industry. A review of 36 of the largest gaming companies in the world carried out by AfterClimate, a consultancy founded by Abrahams, [found](https://www.afterclimate.com.au/net-zero-snapshots/net-zero-snapshot-2023) that 18 of the companies had disclosed some level of engagement with their suppliers, and that the largest of the companies tended to have taken the most significant steps. **Read more:** [_How Sports Stadiums Are Going Green_](https://time.com/collection/time-co2-futures/6692813/sustainable-sports-stadiums/) On the power usage side, both game designers and console manufacturers can take steps to make gaming less electricity-intensive. Here, there’s no silver bullet, says Abraham. Rather, efficiency will be a product of countless tweaks. For example, developers at Epic Games made a number of [changes](https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/reducing-fortnites-power-consumption-layout-v03-ffedbeb1adeb.pdf) to the popular multiplayer game Fortnite, such as reducing the resolution and frame rate of the game’s waiting lobby when a user had been inactive for a given amount of time. Epic Games estimates that these changes, which are imperceptible to gamers, will reduce electricity consumption from all Fortnite players combined by 200 MWh per day—roughly the same amount of power [generated](https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-many-homes-can-average-wind-turbine-power) by seven wind turbines in a day. Last year, Microsoft [rolled out](https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/12/23680336/xbox-energy-saving-power-options-launch-microsoft) energy saving features for the Xbox that reduce the electricity consumed by the console by 95% when not in use. “Over time, this can have real impact on the ways in which consumers experience their devices through their power bills,” says Trista Patterson, director of sustainability for Xbox. However, these efficiencies are fighting against a trend of increasingly higher performing consoles and PCs. So, even if these devices are made more efficient, total power consumption is still increasing, warns Abraham. And the most significant driver of carbon emissions from a game’s electricity usage is how clean the grid is—gamers in Vermont, which [generated](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/) 99.6% of its electricity from renewable sources in 2022, will have a smaller carbon footprint than gamers in Mississippi, which generated 2.7% of its electricity renewably. The wide reach of video games, however, means they can play another role in the transition to net zero, by raising awareness. In 2022, Nordic tech retailer Elkjøp partnered with Minecraft to launch a [scheme](https://www.ddb.no/prosjekter/elkjop-urban-miner#:~:text=Urban%20Miner%20er%20en%20nordisk,samarbeid%20og%20sosial%20media%20innhold.) in which players would earn in-game currency for recycling their e-waste. “Every generation nowadays can be found in games, so we can reach a very broad spectrum of people,” says Lisa Pak, project lead at Playing for the Planet, an initiative founded by the United Nations Environment Programme. “Games are played in many places across the world, so people from all over the world can be reached. But also the opportunity to engage through games is limitless.” **Read more:** [_How Tiffany & Co. Helped Make Mining More Sustainable_](https://time.com/collection/time-co2-futures/6556277/tiffany-sustainable-mining/) Ultimately, though, headlines about gaming being an “[environmental nightmare](https://www.wired.com/story/xbox-playstation-cloud-gaming-environment-nightmare/)” should be taken with a grain of salt—and individuals worried about their personal carbon impact can turn to much more effective ways to tackle that than giving up gaming, [such as taking fewer flights.](https://www.founderspledge.com/research/climate-and-lifestyle-report) That’s because, spending an hour gaming via the cloud on a PlayStation 4 with a large, electricity-hungry television—one of the most carbon-intensive ways to play video games—generates roughly 360 grams of carbon dioxide, according to an [estimate](https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/if-gaming-is-an-environmental-nightmare-then-so-is-hiking) by Seaver Wang, co-director of the [climate](https://time.com/section/climate/) and energy team at the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental research center. As Wang points out, if you spent your Saturday indoors, gaming for 10 hours in the least environmentally-friendly way possible, you’d have generated 3.6 kilograms of carbon dioxide. In comparison, if you drove an efficient hybrid car one hour to a trailhead, went for a hike, and then drove home again, you’d have generated 23 kilograms of carbon dioxide—six times more than if you’d spent the day gaming. Companies, meanwhile, can have a transformative impact. Many of the big tech companies that play a role in gaming—Microsoft, Apple, Google, Ubisoft, and Tencent—have [committed](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LPj5fXo-QpToLmIgC30D48wGL-ZqR6CGX%5FGoreLkCwI/edit#gid=1589670554) to reach net zero by 2030\. Other companies have similar targets: Sony aims to reach net zero by 2040, and Activision by 2050\. Abraham acknowledges that these targets are heartening, but says more must be done. “Are things happening at the pace of change that they need to be?” he asks. “No, absolutely not. Things need to be moving quite a bit quicker.” ## Transcript Every generation nowadays can be found in games the opportunity to engage through games are Limitless their storytelling ours all the creativity in general that comes with the games industry of this a great way to engage people on complicated self make as climate change and the environment these systems can easily be used to teach people about environmental themes and to engage people around the world on this topic in a place where they're already at. the round and round Lots of people are surprised that three billion people on the planet are gaming probably a lot more and the size of the industry is about 334 billion dollars worldwide. That's more than Hollywood Bollywood all the revenues from Cinema and music and professional sports combined one of the different interventions. We did resulted earlier this year in a net impact of taking the equivalent of 190 million are miles of admissions off the road in partnership with just two video game studios. The way in which Xbox has been approaching the sustainability toolkit is to give developers a new analytical lens to look at how to remove the waste and the unnecessary clutter from their coat systems in order to hone in on only those lines of code that are leading to direct benefit and satisfaction for the gamer and it still by removing all of the extras were all of the pieces that remain from former versions of the code all the leftovers, you know, it's like kind of cleaning out your closet. The main thing that we are looking to focus on is to decarbonise the games industry really asking all our members to calculate the carbon footprint set science-based production targets at every year. We release an annual impact report where we were part of the Progresso fart. If we are looking at her job with the amount of energy that is needed to play a game. These are values that we can look at them start to optimize and think about are there any ways to optimize this So we are not developing a new game from scratch in a very short. Of time. But what we're looking to do is focusing on existing games that already have a live audience and then tweaked these games by implementing a so-called green excavation into the game that revolves around an environmental fee. So a green excavation can be a time-limited event that you can find for a short. Of time in the game. It can be a new world a new level or it can be a marketing campaign. The green game Jam will take place this year for the fifth year and this year. We're actually looking to do something slightly different and we're looking to focus on the player audiences and communities trying to get them out of the game into the real world to take small actions that lead to big impact. So when you think about gaming as a Troll Juggernaut. This is a real opportunity for not only engaging really authentically with the kinds of things and pastimes that people really enjoy and are spending their attention on but it's also a way in which we can convey a new pieces of information to people in ways that helps them make their lives better based on the value systems that they hold themselves. 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