Sustainable Games Alliance forms to make the games industry a leader in global sustainability efforts

A group of games industry veterans have set up the Sustainable Games Alliance with the aim of reducing the environmental impact of the global games industry.

The non-profit group is led by MD and co-founder Maria Wagner, who previously led the Berlin & Brandenburg area gaming initiative games:net and co-founded environmental conservation non-profit Games Forest Club. Its chairperson, meanwhile, is co-founder Jiri Kupiainen, a former Disney VP and Matchmade CEO. 

The organisation is backed by the likes of former Remedy creative director and Seriously co-founder Petri Järvilehto and Unity founder and CEO David Helgason.

Reporting standard

SGA aims to create a ‘standard’ for reporting on the games sector’s environmental impact. Its first mission is to survey studios across the globe and understand how much impact the industry has on the environment.

From there, it can propose practical solutions for companies and monitor sustainability efforts with real data, it claims, enabling firms to track and benchmark performance.

It hopes that by creating a reporting standard for companies to follow on improving their sustainability, companies can reduce their footprint while also adhering to sustainability legislation.

It will initially focus on meeting the requirements of the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards, which affects large companies in the EU. By 2026, small and medium-size firms will need to start making disclosures, and by 2028, any company with a “significant presence” in the EU will need to do so.

SGA highlighted data from Dr. Benjamin Abraham, who is part of the core team and leads research and standards at the group, which showed the world’s largest games companies disclosed over 14 million tonnes of CO2 emissions from a dozen firms in 2022. That figure rises to 81m tonnes when including tech giants like Microsoft, Sony, Google, Apple and Tencent, according to the report.

Industry values

Speaking to PocketGamer.biz, Wagner and Kupiainen said they have spent time speaking with games companies about the issue of sustainability. The two even created a YouTube series following their journey.

Kupiainen said it was clear industry leaders care about issues of sustainability, but that the sector has no understanding of its carbon footprint. While some companies already report numbers, there is currently no unified method for the games industry as a whole, he said.

“That’s the first thing, just having some actual comparable numbers industry-wide,” said Kupiainen.

“So we know how bad we are or how good we are and we know where the biggest things are, where we can make a difference.

“And right now, we just don’t have that data.”

Wagner said: “So there are already some numbers out there, but the problem is it’s not a unified method they use.

“At the moment, basically everyone can report whatever they want, which is a big problem because then you don’t have comparable data.”

‘Open’ discussion

Kuipnanen said all the reporting requirements right now are “very generic” and aren’t industry-specific. “They get very fuzzy when we get to the part of the value chain where most gaming emissions happen,” he said, adding that the sector needs a unified way of calculating its footprint before industry leaders can have a full discussion about it.

Kupiainen and Wagner said the group has an ‘open’ governance structure, with the hope that it is easier for companies to get on board and have a voice in exactly how the industry measures sustainability efforts.

“I feel like many of the other initiatives that I’ve seen in games and sustainability, they often struggle with this, that it’s not very open, it’s not very inclusive,” said Kupiainen.

“It’s kind of hard to understand how decisions get made and who makes those decisions and whatnot.

“So for us, it was really important that we set it up in a way where it’s clear that this is the industry getting together and having this conversation amongst ourselves to figure out the best way to do these things.”

Asked why sustainability is a topic game executives should care about when it comes to their bottom line, Kupiainen said the argument is fair and one that “everybody in the industry uses”.

He adds that it’s “not much of an argument” as the topic is a global problem. He noted legislation, such as the aforementioned reporting rules rolling out in the EU to more companies, as a business case of why it’s important to create a standard and start taking action now – it’s a requirement.

“Once we start getting actual, comparable data from all these different companies, then we can start looking at this as an industry-wide problem and we can start identifying what are the most impactful things where we as an industry can really improve,” he said.