Carbon Offset.
As part of the Glasgow Climate Conference, a group of agents is organizing a global IFS to promote the reduction in greenhouse gasses and in general, promote the environment.
It would be nice if individuals can offset their carbon emissions as well.
As part of this, we play Niantic games, Ingress, Pokemon etc.
These games consume electricity and generate carbon pollution.
Niantic as a company appear to care for the environment, see:
https://nianticlabs.com/en/social-impact/
In this article, you state you were developing plans for net zero emissions for 2021.
So - Do Niantic offset their carbon emissions as a company, and for the server resources used to operate their games? Where are you at with the UNEP?
If you are not offsetting emissions, can you give us figures on carbon emissions vs number of players so we, as individuals can offset our impact?
IFS Chat link: https://t.me/SustainabilityTalk
Comments
Bump?
Bump?
Hi @SSSputnik -
It took a bit to get to the right folks here to get a response for you.
"As a company focused on encouraging outdoor exploration, we continue to consider the impact our games and players have on the environment. In addition to our annual sustainability campaigns centered around Earth Day, we are also in the midst of evaluating and better understanding individual player footprints. We welcome ideas from our players!"
OK - as individual players - I am personally paying for carbon offset for myself and my family.
As a company - how about offsetting emissions for server use. You could even make it a subscription option in the game itself?
O Yes I want to offset my game use emissions at $x per month subscription.
We as players - would ask in return - certificate on Niantic web site stating how much went towards carbon offset - say quarterly?
Also, the UNEP report for 2020 was released: https://playing4theplanet.org/
Carbon offsets is just a scam.
Some are just a scam.
If you do research, some of them are very good, they do reports on what has been done with the money and are accredited.
Have a look at Terrapass.
Face it, this game encourages constant use of transportation. Imagine all the people cargressing because they have to travel to takedown BAFs over their head.
Game design isn't conducive to helping our environment at all, what you're seeing is trendy corporate responsibility campaigns, likely sold to Niantic by environmental marketing firms. It's an artificial set of corporate careers to justify people who went to college for expensive degrees in fields that don't produce any tangible product or service.
That's where the issue lies - the infrastructure. It would be odd to try to minimize carbon offset for Niantic when the focus is on the players - not the company. I hope they're not looking at walking x kilometers as that means nothing when the focus is on the type of infrastructure.
If it's anything, the focus lies on raising awareness of the limitations within the existing infrastructure for all users. Ingress players can immediately point out clusters of POIs in their area - it's no coincidence that it's usually an area focused on public space. I would be surprised if Niantic doesn't already know of infrastructure gaps within San Francisco from their games.
A small suggestion for a possible fun event that could help with the spirit of Earth Day and Carbon Offset.
Right now, Ingress rewards BAFs, which are usually the result of a lot of driving. Having some event that encourages microfielding (and possibly reduced kinetic capsules again to further encourage walking) could be a good way to do that. Like an event that tracks fields made under a certain MU and increments your badge. Or a new badge in general for microfielding. This could also help discourage keeping up BAFs in areas for long periods of time, which hampers gameplay in many areas.
Well, personally paying to offset my emissions, so, i feel less guilty driving 600km.
Be nice if Niantic offset their server emissions and HQ location emissions etc.