Gamesplanet Eco Lab

Understanding Gamesplanet.com's CO2 footprint

In 2021, we calculated an initial carbon footprint of Gamesplanet.com's activities which was as complete as possible. We received explicit training on this topic to make this happen.

To calculate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions all direct and indirect emissions associated with Gamesplanet.com's offering are recorded.

These are the key data statistics:

2021 Activity Data

In detail, the creation of the carbon footprint consists of identifying the scope and totality of Gamesplanet's data streams, which are divided into three scopes:

Finally, the task is to calculate the CO2-equivalent emissions of each part based on the following formula: CO2e emissions = quantity used x emission factor.

Flowchart Gamesplanet.com

Calculating the carbon footprint made us realise that many parties often assess their footprint based on assumptions. While this type of assessment is often useful when limited to one's own computers and proprietary infrastructure, it becomes much more difficult for large parts of our industry: there is a lack of data on emission factors for networks, cloud storage, specific uses such as online gaming or platform-based downloads, or when looking for reliable life cycle data for PCs or servers. In this sense, data on metal extraction, production and manufacturing phases through to final assembly is rarely shared by manufacturers and even more rarely made publicly available.

As of 2022, Gamesplanet.com has actively participated in the development of Jyros, an ecological footprint calculator developed by and for companies in the video game industry.

This tool fulfils a threefold purpose:

• A multi-criteria, comprehensive, transparent and developable method for measuring environmental impacts (carbon equivalents, water, excavated soil and fossil fuels / all scopes, including the customer's utilisation share).
• Extraction of data in the GHG protocol format (Greenhouse Gas Protocol), the most widely used format internationally. Jyros also applies the Playing 4 the Planet recommendations for the inclusion of Scope 3.
• Extraction of data expected by the CNC (in France) as part of the eco-conditionality of aid.

The carbon footprint calculated by Gamesplanet thanks to Jyros for Scopes 1, 2 and 3 shows a slight increase compared to the carbon footprint calculated for 2021. This is mainly due to the change in methodology (led by company ICare) and the inclusion of more accurate impact factors than in the generic ADEME carbon footprint.