The Green Games Guide

As part of our quest for sustainability, our team have been broadening their knowledge of sustainable production by journeying into the games industry, which according to Dr Jo Twist OBE, CEO of UKIE, is particularly well equipped to start collectively making a difference.

In the spirit of ‘Think Global, Act Local’, we caught up with Simon Ashbery of St. Ives based games studio Thunder Child and talked to him about how his own locality and personal experience of relocating from London to St Ives has affected the way he views the environment. “I would consider myself as always having being environmentally minded, but then moving here, where it’s wild and beautiful and in many cases still pristine, really brings home exactly what environmentalism means and what we’re trying to preserve and protect.”

When discussing with Ashbery how games themselves can be a vessel for delivering a sustainability theme, he said, “I think there’s a tremendous amount of opportunity and space to start exploring game mechanics with environmental themes, incorporating them into the gameplay loop itself.” His own exciting, new development Woden Vale will involve rehabilitating and rewilding magical creatures inspired by Cornish and other Celtic folklore and mythology. As a guardian of the forest, the player will fight back the corrupting forces of dark magic which serve as an allegory for pollution and environmental destruction.

When we look at the industry as a whole, research from UKIE shows that many studio leaders either felt disconnected from the issue of sustainability or did not know how to begin improving their working practices – and that’s where the Green Games Guide comes in.

So what is the guide, exactly?

It’s an action plan and the start of a conversation about how the games sector can spearhead positive change to the ways in which we all interact with the environment. It aims to help games businesses measure their carbon footprint, cut emissions and consider how green messages and themes can be woven into their narratives and game mechanics with the purpose of influencing consumer thinking. The guide is packed with information and advice, and case studies from the studios already making a difference.

The Green Games Guide also offers a practical 5 step process of how to begin making changes to a games business so that they can achieve their sustainability goals:

Step 1 – Setting your scope and timeline

Develop an understanding of what you need to measure and collect data.

Step 2 – Calculating your carbon footprint

Establish short and long-term targets and follow the guide’s step-by-step advice and links to in-depth resources for how you can calculate your businesses carbon footprint.

Step 3 – Take bold and ambitious action to reduce your carbon footprint

Implement actions and start to reduce your emissions to make the biggest positive impact possible.

Step 4 – Where it’s impossible to cut back, look to offsetting instead

Offset your carbon commissions by funding projects that remove or prevent greenhouse gas emissions. Speak to the Screen Cornwall team about innovative options in Cornwall.

Step 5 – Ratchet, review and recommend to others

Review and analyse the results of the previous year’s efforts, and share positive working practices with others to help spread positive change.

For more facts, advice and case studies, you can find the full Green Games Guide here: