Nintendo: Greening the Game Industry
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 06.30.07
After leading the video game industry in innovation with its DS handheld and Wii console, the house of Mario is now vying to burnish its green credentials with a series of environmental policies it recently unveiled in an e-mail exchange with an enterprising reader from a Nintendo fan site. While nothing special by our standards (keep in mind we're talking about a relatively benign industry, emissions/pollution-wise), Nintendo has established a commendable set of policies to minimize its environmental impact.
So how green are we talking about? In Nintendo's own words:
In our offices:
– We recycle the paper we use company-wide.
– We limit our use of colored paper, since it's not easily recycled.
– We purchase recycled paper towels, report covers, message pads, and writing pads.
– We currently recycle more than 70% of the waste that is generated at our headquarters.
– We actively promote the recycling of aluminum cans and glass in our corporate cafeterias.
In our products:
– We use at least 80% recycled paper in all of our shipping packaging.
– We no longer use Styrofoam in our game pak or Game Boy packaging.
– All of our instruction manuals are printed on recycled paper.
– We no longer use plastic Game Pak covers.
– Our clamshell packaging is recyclable and most recycling centers accept it.
– We require that manufacturers not use any banned substances (such as lead, mercury, etc.) in components, nor use them in the manufacturing process for any components used inside of our products. This requirement also extends to suppliers of packaging, marketing materials, and other items used in the marketing and distribution of our products.
Now, of course, we take this statement with a large grain of salt since it was directly issued by the company and thus not vetted by an independent third-party. However, even if only mostly true, this is a positive development from an industry that's received short shrift for its environmental policies over the past few years.
Via ::Joystiq: Nintendo hearts the environment, ::GoNintendo: Nintendo is environmentally friendly
See also: ::Teaching Kids to Respect Earth Through Gameplay, ::Adventure Ecology – ARTiculating Environmental Issues, ::Solar Powered Nintendo, ::Solar Powered Wii: Go Outside and Play
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- Want to Save $100 A Year and Power San Diego? Just Turn off Your XBox
- National Geographics Shows Its Gamer Side, Launches Video Game Series
This has been Nintendo's published policy for a while now. I tried to poke a little deeper and kept getting the same standard response. Finally I got in touch with someone in their PR dept and I got a little further. The console and the controller cords are also pvc free. I plan on doing a comparison between Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft. So far Sony appears to be the most transparent, but that may just be appearances. This will take some digging and persistence, because unlike what the post suggests, this is not a benign industry. Enjoyable, yes. Benign, no. Nintendo just passed Sony, to become one of the top five companies in Japan--- there is impact, and it is large.
a benign industry?
Today each of the millions of home games consoles consume more than 170W of electricity while playing...
Except Nintendo's Wii, which consumes less than 20W