Ubisoft: fun and sustainability, a winning combination

Founded in 1998, Ubisoft Milan is the development studio of the international Ubisoft group located in Italy. We have worked on numerous video games in collaboration with other companies in the group, and in recent years we have extended our partnership to another top-level company such as Nintendo, which has allowed us to include a true legend of the calibre of Mario in our last two projects, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle and Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope. More than 'game developers', we like to call ourselves 'world creators'. Imaginary worlds, fantastic worlds, inspired by real nations or continents, historical periods or invented from scratch, among the stars. But each of those worlds is chiselled by drawing inspiration from the one, true world we have at our disposal: the Earth. Which we pay tribute to with our creations and preserve with small and large gestures, both locally and globally.

The growth we have experienced in recent years has led us to expand our ambitions, starting from the place where those ambitions take shape: our studio, our home. A larger space than the one we were in before, easier to reach for all employees thanks to the metro station below. This was a first step in our company's plan to reduce its environmental impact. Small' gestures, as we were saying, but multiplied by the more than 100 employees, they translate into something significant: just think of the elimination of plastic bottles, facilitated by giving each new employee a metal bottle with our logo and installing drinking water columns in the common areas of the firm. Or the creation of a modern, thermally optimised space to minimise consumption related to heating.

Then there is the partnership with 3Bee, which we have been supporting for two years: we have adopted a beehive and raise awareness among our employees with targeted communications, periodically giving them pots of honey from the bees we have adopted. A lovely and much appreciated reminder! But also broader projects, as we were saying. The entire Ubisoft group is increasingly engaged on two fronts: the reduction of the so-called 'carbon footprint', i.e. the emissions caused by the entire company at a global level, and sensitisation to impact and pollute less, through initiatives on a global scale both internally and externally. How do these two noble intentions translate? I could cite as an example the decision to reinvent someinternal events and meetings, previously organised in presence in the various locations of our group, in a digital format, so as to allow stakeholders to participate remotely and reduce their environmental impact.

Then there is the commitment to use more and more renewable energy sources: in 2021, globally, we reached the 67% threshold, 5% more than the previous year. Looking at data centres alone, we even reached 95%. In short, the entire IT department is committed to making less of an impact, including adopting hardware and working tools with the lowest consumption and longest possible lifecycle, recycling where possible. The list of activities is still long, but I would also like to dwell on the transmission of these values to Ubisoft's partners, firstly by asking them to declare their emissions and fight together to reduce them, but above all by becoming founders and members of the "Playing 4 the Planet" alliance, facilitated by the United Nations Environment Programme. A project aimed at gamers to raise their awareness of the issue, and in which the most important companies in the sector participate, reaching over 1 billion users.

Awareness-raising, in short, certainly doesn't stop with employees, far from it: our lifeblood is precisely the gamers, the end users, and any message would be in vain if it stopped at the walls of our studios. But how to get them passionate about such an important but complex subject to explain? The most effective tool, of course, is the video games themselves. And to convey certain messages, both we as Ubisoft and each member of Playing 4 the Planet adopt the most interactive and engaging methods in the form of annual "Green Game Jam", in which initiatives are devised to inspire players: from the environmental themes dealt with in the narrative fabric of our works, as in "our" Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, to actual in-game activities designed to raise awareness on the subject.

In the sports video game Riders Republic developed by our colleagues at Ubisoft Annecy, in which players can take part in competitions in various extreme sports on a mountain bike or snowboard, exclusive aesthetic elements such as themed T-shirts were given away to anyone taking part in a real virtual march for the planet, or joining the 'digital' reforestation process activated for the occasion. Or, for the historically-set strategy video game Anno 1800, a mode was introduced in which the player also had to take into account the environmental impact of his or her actions, for example by modifying air or water quality, and donating the proceeds of a paid downloadable content called 'Plant a Tree' to Ecologi, a company specialising in reforestation.

An activity similar to the one carried out for Ghost Recon Breakpoint, to whose development we at Ubisoft Milan also contributed, which allowed players to fight enemies scattered across the game's gigantic, paradisiacal setting but also, literally, plant new trees. In addition to being able to donate to the aforementioned Ecologists, players went so far as to plant as many as 566,000 trees in the real world! All these awareness-raising activities have one goal: regenerating the biodiversity of our planet.