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Six years on from its foundation, Playing for the Planet continues to deliver on its mission to use the transformative power of video games to achieve real-world environmental impact. In 2025 alone, the initiative engaged over 235 million players with environmental themes through the Green Game Jam (and raised $284,000 for nature in the process). The Alliance published new research that showed developers how to effectively educate players about environmental issues through game design, informed by data from more than 58,000 players.
It delivered practical advice to games industry businesses aiming to decarbonise their companies, via tailored industry-friendly Net Zero target setting guidance and hosting 100 industry leaders at the Green Game Summit. Playing for the Planet also increased its impact by growing its membership, encompassing 56 members by the end of 2025, marking a 12% increase since 2024.
And most importantly of all, 2025 was the year where studios demonstrated that integrating green activations into their games positively impacted both the environment and their games. Games such as Honor of Kings and June’s Journey saw player engagement, social media traction, and even their revenue increase through their involvement in the Green Game Jam.
Alongside the successes of 2025, the Impact Report identifies areas for the Alliance to strengthen its industry leadership on environmental impact.
Net Zero targets present a mixed picture. While some companies are on track to reach their goals within an ambitious timeline, many businesses are pursuing cautious goals that may not reflect the extent of the climate challenge in front of us. It is important to support ambition by ensuring that the message behind reducing emissions remains positive, potent and fresh in the minds of studios.
Playing for the Planet must also continue to find new ways to grow its impact and deliver real-world results amidst a challenging economic situation and shifting political climate. Despite these challenges, the initiative demonstrated its ongoing value to its members through its programme of work, with a satisfaction score of 95% across the membership. This is testament to the strength of the movement, which has transformed an ambitious commitment to steer the games industry towards greater environmental action into a mature, global collective capable of delivering increasingly measurable impact.
2025 marked a turning point where the idealism and ambition of the Alliance evolved into a sustainable framework for long-term action. Cultivating this success ahead of 2030 will be crucial for Alliance members and for the hundreds of millions of players who are hungry for more opportunities to act.
The Playing for the Planet Alliance, formed in 2019, aims to activate players globally to protect and restore our planet whilst accelerating decarbonization across the video games industry.
Founded by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) with UKIE operating as the fiscal sponsor, Playing for the Planet’s vision is that of a collaborative video games community that holds itself accountable for a sustainable future and inspires people to make a positive impact on our planet.
Developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) as part of its original commitments to Playing for the Planet, Climate Station launched as a free application for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation VR2 in June 2025, harnessing the unique power of the interactive medium to bring climate science to life.
Synthesizing data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Station condenses the seismic story of climate change into an immersive experience for anyone to play from the comfort of their home.
By bringing sophisticated climate science into the living rooms of millions, the project showcases how interactive entertainment can effectively foster climate awareness, education, and a deeper understanding of the urgent actions required to address the global crisis.
The Green Game Jam is an annual challenge open to studios who work on live games with existing audiences. Studios build into their games new content that engages players on environmental topics whilst working towards a collective goal.
2025's theme for the GGJ was 'Nature'. We chose this theme because nature is in crisis - one million of the world’s estimated 8 million species is under threat of extinction. Together with The Now Work, Playing for the Planet developed a campaign landing page that asked players to go All In for Nature, giving a statement of support that told us why they care about nature and why it should be protected.
Players were led to the page through in-game content from studios that focused on themes of conservation, wildlife, biodiversity, and teamwork.
The Green Game Jam is supported by developers inside and outside of the Alliance. 10 Playing for the Planet members participated in the Green Game Jam 2025, all of whom had previously created at least one Green Activation before.
By the campaign's end, All In For Nature had received 71,000 statements of support from players in 169 countries and 31 territories or principalities. Here's just a couple of our favourite messages from that number...
Participants also fundraised for one of three conservation projects managed by Playing for the Planet member Studio BlueGreen. Though it was not the primary aim of the campaign, members raised a total of $284,486.64 to support Studio BlueGreen’s selected projects, as well as other conservation organisations individually selected by participating studios.
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Wooga’s Nature Trails campaign within June’s Journey introduced four live ops events set in East Africa, which introduced players to local flora and fauna. The campaign had a 73% satisfaction rate amongst players, increased live ops participation by 11%, and generated 25% more revenue than initially forecasted, with 25,000 trees planted and 800,000 ft2 of wildlife habitat protected through player engagement.
Full Case Study →
Two in-game events (Protect Nature, Protect All Life and Match for Green) introduced a rare species collection feature, a social mini-game, and a new skin. Player participation contributed to the purchase and retirement of 28,000 metric tons of high-integrity carbon credits across four forest conservation projects in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brazil. With a 90% engagement rate overall, the campaign received 69% higher social media buzz than other major IP collaborations and saw one player attempt the mini-game 572 times in a single day. Meanwhile, 87% of players said they’d be more likely to take action for nature as a result of playing the event.
Full Case Study →
GameDuell ran a campaign to inform players of damage to rainforests, nature and endangered species in two of its popular card games. It educated players about issues, prompted knowledge through trivia quizzes and sold in-game content to support preservation. Daily player engagement grew by 25.9% in Rummy Fun compared to previous events and 22.6% within Skat Treff. It generated 11,775 statements of support for the environment. GameDuell also donated €12,500 to support the protection of 80,000sqm of rainforest following the campaign.
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Every year, the Alliance surveys its membership to understand its progress on decarbonisation. The results of the survey guide the Alliance’s activity by informing it of progress on its agenda so far, helping it to understand how it serves the needs of its different-sized members, and offering guidance on areas Playing for the Planet should focus on in the future.
This year, 86% of members responded to our survey exploring whether their game businesses have set decarbonisation targets, how they’re measuring progress, and whether they are on track to hit their goals.
Five members did not respond to the reporting process, either because they were unable to submit their data due to a lack of capacity or because they were leaving the Alliance. Given their size and carbon significance, Associate Members are not included in this section of the survey.
Carbon accounting is the process of measuring, tracking, and reporting on emissions produced by a business across its supply chain. The Alliance continues to see progress on measurement, with a 9 percentage points increase in members who are conducting carbon emissions accounting year-on-year compared to 2024.
This reflects the increasing knowledge and maturity across the membership on acting to reduce carbon emissions and as a result of support from tools provided by the Alliance and ongoing support offered to studios.
All of the larger Alliance members (>5,000 staff) report annually, and Playing for the Planet partners with those who are not measuring (many of them small and medium-sized members) to steer them towards a year-on-year cadence via tools available such as Playing for the Planet’s Carbon Calculator.
Scope 3 emissions are defined by the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol as indirect emissions that occur in the upstream and downstream activities of an organisation. This includes activities such as business travel, purchasing goods, waste disposal, investment and more. 70% of Alliance members calculate their Scope 3 emissions. Of the remaining members who do not calculate their Scope 3 emissions, 88% are small studios.
In comparison to other categories, Scope 3, Category 11, Use of Sold Products, is still largely underreported. This is despite the fact that the category typically represents the biggest source of emissions for many studios and publishers.
Playing for the Planet is working to scale up support for studios to undertake full Scope 3 emissions accounting, with a focus on measuring Use of Sold Products and Purchased Goods as high-impact areas for the industry.
Overall, 46.1% of Alliance members have set a Net Zero target for their game business – the same percentage as 2024.
Results for 2025 show that there is still a gap in the membership around Net Zero targets, with a significant number of members without Net Zero targets, and several extending their timeline for Net Zero transition.
This is largely a result of smaller studios of under 100 staff shifting their commitments, while the larger studios are retaining their goals.
All larger members (defined as businesses with more than 5,000 staff) have committed to reaching Net Zero or carbon neutrality, while 54.5% of those who haven’t got a target are smaller studios.
Playing for the Planet has recently published science-based target-setting guidance to encourage and support all members to commit to a dated Net Zero target, particularly those with no targets or only carbon neutral targets, and the initiative aims to increase engagement with smaller studios via a workshop to support further target setting.
Historically, members have been asked to self-report on whether they are on track to meet their emission reduction targets. Playing for the Planet is implementing a new accountability process to independently assess how our members are doing.
These new Member Trackers process will offer an authentic, data-driven overview of each member’s decarbonisation status to enhance accountability and progress on this agenda. This is scheduled to roll out in 2026.
Public, validated transition plans provide transparency and purposeful accountability for businesses reducing their carbon emissions. Following the publication of our Net Zero Target Setting guidance, we asked members about their transition plans for the first time in 2025.
Transition planning is still relatively nascent across the membership. With the EU’s CSRD regulation reducing the scope of companies that fall within its requirements, transition planning has likely fallen down the priority list.
The initiative will continue to encourage medium and larger sized studios to adopt transition plans moving forward, with a view towards informing sector-wide transition guidance so that this becomes best practice across the sector.
The Alliance believes that high-quality carbon credits play a role in mitigating the effects of climate change, but should not act as a substitute for focused action by businesses to reduce emissions.
In 2025, 33.3% invested in voluntary carbon offsets or removals in 2025. 66.7% did not invest in voluntary carbon offsets or removals in 2025.
These responses are consistent with observations across the sustainability space, where focus has shifted in recent years from carbon neutrality achieved through offsetting, towards Net Zero and a prioritisation of emissions reductions across Scopes 1, 2 and 3.
Ongoing innovations in energy efficiency, such as the rollout of new tools like Power Saver for PS5 from Sony Interactive Entertainment, are gaining momentum as an increasingly effective approach for the industry to reduce the associated emissions of gameplay.
Separately, in Star Wars Outlaws™, Ubisoft developer Massive Entertainment was able to reduce the game’s framerate to 1 FPS in the pause menu without any noticeable compromise, shrinking its energy draw to just 18 - 20% of total available power.
These results were achieved via support from the Xbox Sustainability Toolkit, a set of free developer tools and resources designed to help measure and reduce the energy consumption of games published on Xbox platforms.
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Playing for the Planet’s 15 Associate members (regional development groups, industry trade associations, and non-profit organisations) play an important role in promoting the Alliance to the industry beyond its core developer, publisher and platform membership.
This year, 80% of the Alliance’s Associate Members responded to our survey to share their actions and achievements from 2025, and how they supported the work of the Alliance through their membership.
Playing for the Planet’s network of Associate Members promoted the Green Game Jam to their networks of game developers.
Our Associate Members also actively supported the expansion of the Alliance through promotion, advocacy and sponsorship of its work.
Playing for the Planet has four main aims for 2026:
The Alliance will continue its mission to activate players globally to protect and restore our planet. Much of this work will come through the Green Game Jam, which this year will keep the spotlight on nature through the theme ‘Reefs and Rainforests.’ Whilst the Green Game Jam will focus on fundraising as an outcome, it will also guide studios to deepen players' knowledge of the subject matter and build a sense of community to meet its goal.
The Alliance will provide guidance on the environmental impact of AI within game businesses. Playing for the Planet will run workshops to engage members on the use of AI in their businesses, develop a working paper to inform the Alliance’s thinking and develop formal guidance later in the year.
The Alliance will expand on its decarbonisation work to deliver decarbonisation at scale. In 2026, Playing for the Planet will focus on strengthening member commitments and measurable decarbonisation efforts, including through energy-efficiency optimisations.
The Green Games Summit will return in September 2026, exploring the theme of Building Resilience for People and the Planet. As the industry navigates the changes and challenges that lie ahead, leaders from across video games and tech will come together to deep dive into how we can harness games as a medium to build resilience and unlock a new set of possibilities for current and future generations.
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Playing for the Planet is always seeking new members who are committed to decarbonising their game businesses and activating players to take action on the environment
This Impact Report was commissioned by Playing for the Planet and covers the calendar year 2025.
We would like to thank the following members for their contributions to this report:
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Playing for the Planet Advisory Council (2025)
