Sony, like many major companies, is making an effort to reduce the environmental impact of its products. Now, in the aftermath of this year’s Earth Day, the organisation has provided an update on its progress. As you’d expect, the firm has a long way to go in order to achieve its goal of having a zero environmental footprint by 2050, but it’s taking the right steps to get there.
According to a new SIE corporate blog post, the PlayStation division offset carbon emissions equivalent to 100 million hours of average console electricity use during gameplay in 2021. This is through energy efficiency improvements that it’s built into the PS5 and PS4, including more efficient chipsets and low-power Rest Modes – positive change, then!
Of course, it’s not all the company is doing. You may recall with the launch of Horizon Forbidden West that the firm used the game to raise awareness about climate change, and “invested in planting more than a half million trees with selected partners and organisations”. If you remember, the company embarked on a reforestation effort in Wisconsin, pledging a tree in real-life for each player who reached the Daunt in-game.
There’s other important things the organisation has been doing. As it prepares to launch PS Plus Premium with cloud streaming, it’s been working with its data centres to help them transition to renewable energy where possible. Since 2020, around 78 per cent of the electricity used to stream PlayStation games with PS Now has come from renewable sources. Meanwhile, the firm’s head offices in Europe and the US already use 100 per cent renewable energy, while its Japan headquarters will follow their lead later this year.
And, beginning last year, the company has started to use recyclable plastic in its game boxes, with roughly 10 per cent of its plastic sourced from post-industrial waste. You can read more about what PlayStation’s been doing through here, but the message is clear throughout: great progress with plenty more work to do.
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