In the final part of this series exploring the work of the Playing for the Planet Alliance five years on from its foundation, George Osborn examines how the structure of the Alliance has evolved over the past half decade to help it deliver upon its goals.
In September 2019, The Playing for the Planet Alliance was launched at the UN Headquarters in New York during the UN Secretary-General's Climate Action Summit.
The Alliance, which was initially facilitated by UNEP with the support of GRID-Arendal and Playmob, aimed to build a coalition of industry members to use its influence and reach to both inspire positive action on the climate from both companies working within the sector and the 1 in 3 people on the planet who play games.
Between September 2019 and September 2024, the Alliance has grown significantly in size - evolving from an informal grouping of a handful of organisations to an effectively governed organisation with a membership of over 50 games businesses, trade associations, and industry groups committed to address what UNEP describes as “the triple planetary crisis” of addressing climate change, pollution and nature loss.
The structure of the Alliance evolved to support such a grouping of companies for three major reasons.
The membership - growing the Alliance’s reach within the industry
The Alliance’s first priority was to grow its membership to expand its reach and influence within the video games industry.
Rather than force companies into competition with one another, the Alliance sought from the outset to encourage businesses to come together in a spirit of collaboration - allowing them to overcome commercial rivalries in favour of co-operation on the major issues of the day.
In its first full year in 2020, membership of the Alliance stretched to 19 businesses such as Sony Interactive Entertainment, Microsoft, Supercell, Ubisoft and Rovio - providing the Alliance with a credible base of video games businesses upon which to build its work. Within the development and distribution side of the industry, membership of the Alliance grew steadily over the years as companies across the world such as ustwo games and Wooga committed to inspiring players to take action on the climate.
But its growth was supplemented further by the implementation of membership for two categories of organisations: broader industry supporters such as Google and Razer - who are indirectly involved in game development through the essential software and hardware they produce on its behalf - and through trade association members like Video Games Europe (VGE), UK Interactive Entertainment (Ukie) and Australia’s Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA).
The Alliance has even grown to encompass smaller studios with a deep focus on environmental work, with businesses such as Tigertron, Meshminds and Tales bringing deep creative focus to their work. By building a broad membership base, the Alliance has created a network of members which reflects the games, technologies, and networks that underpin the global games industry. This has increased its reach, its effectiveness, and trust in its work within the sector.
Governance - ensuring the Alliance holds members to account
To ensure that its membership is committed to delivering for the long-term, the Alliance has evolved its governance structure to firmly, but fairly, hold its members to account. Over the course of five years, the Alliance has done this in three ways.
First, it has developed an increasingly robust target setting and reporting structure to hold members accountable for the work they pledge to deliver, with science-based targets encouraged and hosted with SBTi but with annual ratcheted pledges made each year by Alliance members.
By encouraging all members who sign up to the Alliance to set a range of climate related targets within their businesses - including in regards to reducing their own emissions - the organisation has been able to effectively question members on progress, and to ensure that only those that are committed to act remain. This has allowed the Alliance to celebrate good practice, support organisations who need assistance, and preserve the integrity of the coalition.
Second, the Alliance has evolved that target setting over time to reflect its greater engagement and understanding of the games industry. Rather than adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to accountability, the group has adapted to understand that different types of games companies (e.g. independent developers), industry supporters, and trade associations can deliver impact in different ways.
By factoring this in, the Alliance has multiple pathways for companies to demonstrate their progress on tackling the climate crisis in a number of different ways - such as audience reach on climate messaging, meaningful reductions in emissions within a business, or distribution of advice to networks - that reflect what their business can do.
Finally, the Playing for the Planet Alliance has benefitted from the evolution of a formal business structure around its activities. Constructed with the support of Ukie and rolled out in 2022, the Alliance shifted from an informal structure to an established initiative that has a governance structure to underpin its work streams. It also agreed a funding structure to ensure that it is sustainably financed by its membership on a year-to-year basis.
This has allowed the Alliance to operate more successfully as a whole, allowing it to grow its capacity and capability to deliver its work, to take time to measure progress properly and to fund the evolution of new workstreams to deliver its goals.
Creating collaboration - generating co-operation rather than competition
The structure of the Alliance has also evolved over the past five years to facilitate collaboration amongst individuals and members in ways that erode competitive barriers. Alongside growing its membership and establishing a governance structure, the Alliance has facilitated a number of work streams and working groups to allow individuals within companies to co-operate across issues in a constructive manner.
Since the Alliance was founded, the organisation has supported a range of fringe activities from Alliance members such as Ukie’s Green Coding Workshop and a range of ongoing industry working groups - such as its game packaging group - to bring expertise together from across the sector.
This is important for two major reasons. First, it has allowed games companies to work together within a level playing field. In a sector that is often protective of its development and design approaches for intellectual property or commercial confidentiality purposes, collaborative working groups have created a forum in which ideas can be shared freely without fear of repercussions.
Second, the implementation of working groups has empowered individuals working within games businesses to advance their passion for tackling the climate crisis within their companies and communities. Allowing individuals to become ‘champions’ of the cause has delivered a three-fold effect of increasing the reach of the Alliance within the industry community, increasing their standing within their companies, and inspiring the creation of spin-off businesses and communities aimed at delivering the goals of the group within the industry more broadly.
In short, the creation of a strong structure around the Alliance has allowed it to both drive change within the industry effectively through its own work and to act as an engine of change within individual corners of the sector. This meets the initial aims of the group to spark decisive action from major industry players and inspire more widely, demonstrating the value of building, protecting, and enhancing the structure around the Alliance as a whole.
One of the defining strengths of the Playing for the Planet Alliance is its focus on collaboration as a metric for the initiative's mission, as well as setting up the foundations to sustain progress through its governance. It has developed what could be argued is a best in class structure which is inclusive to the full spectrum of businesses operating in the global games industry, encourages collaboration amongst its members and yet remains unafraid to hold members accountable to shared standards.
By putting good governance at the heart of its operation, the Alliance has been able to evolve from a loose affiliation of interested members to a formal group capable of funding and supporting workstreams that are able to deliver upon its goals, and scale the movement over time. It remains one of the major achievements of the Alliance in the past half decade and provides an excellent structure upon which it can build future growth.
