Sony, Microsoft, Stadia, and others join forces with United Nations to announce new climate change commitments, including a more eco-friendly PS5

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Today, the United Nations has announced (opens in new tab) it is partnering with 21 companies in the video game industry to “harness the power of their platforms to take action in response to the climate crisis”, as part of its new Playing for the Planet initiative. 

The likes of Sony, Microsoft, Google Stadia (opens in new tab), Ubisoft, and more have all pledged to the programme, announcing various initiatives to reduce their own corporate carbon footprint while simultaneously promoting awareness about the climate crisis through their medium. 

Sony’s President and CEO Jim Ryan, for example, has announced (opens in new tab) that the upcoming PS5 (opens in new tab), the next generation PlayStation console, will feature a “low power suspend mode” which could potentially save huge amounts of energy expenditure for its users around the world. 

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Why are video games better at recognising the dangers of climate change than politicians? (opens in new tab)

Microsoft is continuing to reach its aims of producing carbon neutral Xbox consoles, and plans to reduce its supply chain emissions by 20% in 2030, while Google Stadia is releasing a Sustainable Game Development Guide to help its partnered studios create games through greener processes. 

This isn’t the first series of announcements from the UN’s Playing for the Planet initiative, either. Last week, Football Manager 2020 developer Sports Interactive announced that its new game of 2019 (opens in new tab) will be wrapped in recyclable packaging (opens in new tab), while Minecraft (opens in new tab)‘s ‘Build a Better World’ has been running for years, teaching its users on what a future, greener Earth might look like. 

Playing for the Planet is part of the United Nation’s overall efforts (opens in new tab) to achieve its sustainable development goals this century, limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees. At present, most climate scientists agree (opens in new tab) that the world has already passed this point of no return, and we are now on track to reach four degrees of warming or higher by 2100. 

Check out other ways in video games are making the world a better place in 2019 (opens in new tab), or watch our Release Radar below for a guide to everything out this week.