Xbox Celebrates Earth Day with a Sustainability Update, Special Edition Products, and Events

Just days forward of Earth Day, we wished to take a second to mirror on a few of the work that we’re doing to guard our planet and share alternatives for our group to have a good time alongside us.

At Microsoft, we have now set the commitments to function as a carbon unfavorable, water optimistic and 0 waste firm by 2030.  Microsoft strives to empower the world to do extra, and driving optimistic, transformational change requires pondering past conventional boundaries. Gaming offers an unimaginable platform to drive cultural change on a world scale and encourage gamers to discover, experiment, and join with the world and with one another in new methods. Sustainability is a crew sport—and we’re excited to see how far we are able to go when everybody performs collectively.

An Update on our Sustainability Efforts

Last 12 months, we shared an replace on our sustainability efforts. Here is what we have now been as much as since:

Reducing Waste:

The Xbox Wireless Controller – Remix Special Edition takes us one step additional in our journey in the direction of our zero-waste dedication, that includes recovered plastics with one-third of it comprised of regrind and reclaimed supplies. By incorporating regrind supplies, post-consumer recycled resins, and together with the Xbox Rechargeable Battery Pack – Xbox is exploring methods to make use of much less new plastic and scale back waste.  Check out the unboxing video under to study extra!

More issues we’re doing to scale back the waste we create and use as a enterprise, and assist Microsoft obtain our purpose of working as a zero-waste enterprise by 2030:

• We are more and more discovering new alternatives to include recovered plastics into our controllers.  We began with the Daystrike Camo and the Electric Volt controller and have been transitioning a few of the controllers already available in the market to comprise extra Post-Consumer Recycled resins (PCR), together with our Shock Blue and Pulse Red controllers. Visit the Xbox Sustainability Hub to view a group of controllers that comprise 20% or extra PCR content material.
• Xbox Design Lab, our controller customization platform, launched with 15 new colours that comprise Post-Consumer Recycled plastic. Since then, we have now transitioned many of the coloration choices provided on the platform to comprise PCR.
• In the Nordic area (Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland), we partnered with retail accomplice Elkjøp to launch the Urban Miner marketing campaign, the place we invited all Nordic households to gather previous electronics of their households and return them to an Elkjøp retailer for recycling. In return, the shoppers acquired Minecoins to be used on the Minecraft Marketplace. The marketing campaign resulted in additional than 11,000 gadgets returned, representing roughly 17 tons of digital waste.
• Microsoft has eradicated the utilization of polystyrene on new point-of-sale activation (POSA) playing cards (like present playing cards) transitioning to paperboard throughout our companions. We have additionally modified the plastic baggage through which we used to bundle our POSA playing cards to paper bands in most of our markets, which we count on will keep away from the equal of over 2 million plastic baggage over the subsequent two fiscal years.  

Carbon Reduction:

At Game Developer Conference (GDC) this 12 months, we introduced that Xbox is the primary console to launch devoted power and carbon emissions measurement instruments designed for (and with) recreation creators. Using these instruments, studios and recreation builders have discovered alternatives by recreation design to decrease their carbon emissions with out impacting the participant expertise. To study extra concerning the Xbox sustainability toolkit, watch the video under!

At Xbox, we maintain ourselves accountable to the emissions created by our merchandise in our gamers’ houses—listed here are some extra issues we’re doing to scale back these emissions.

• In January, we introduced that Xbox is the primary Carbon Aware console.  When your console is plugged in, linked to the Internet and regional carbon depth knowledge is accessible, Xbox will schedule recreation, app, and OS updates to your console at particular instances throughout the nightly upkeep window which will lead to decrease carbon emissions as a result of a better proportion of electrical energy is coming from lower-carbon sources on the electrical grid.
• At the identical time, we started experimenting with routinely updating consoles to the Shutdown (power saving) energy mode and are bringing these updates to extra consoles all year long.
• We additionally supplied the “Active Hours” choice for people who wish to use the extra power intensive Sleep energy choice. This permits gamers to pick the hours that they wish to use Sleep mode options like distant wake. The console will totally shutdown outdoors of these hours (utilizing as much as 20x much less energy when turned off vs. Sleep). Players can choose for his or her console to routinely schedule their lively hours, to configure a handbook schedule, or to maintain their console at all times lively.

Collective Action: 

We are at all times on the lookout for alternatives to accomplice with gamers, trade companions and exterior organizations to make gaming a greater trade for the surroundings. To study extra about these partnerships, watch the video under:

• Minecraft Education and BBC Earth teamed as much as create an thrilling Frozen Planet II expertise, with 5 Minecraft worlds impressed by the long-lasting sequence. Minecraft gamers can play as eight completely different animals, experiencing Earth’s chilly habitats and studying concerning the impacts of local weather change. Students in additional than 110 nations have performed the Frozen Planet II Minecraft worlds, and the maps have been downloaded by hundreds of thousands of gamers and can be found in 29 languages, accompanied by academic sources for academics and households.
• Schools Reinventing Cities has been developed by Minecraft Education and C40 Cities to present college students around the globe the chance to design local weather options for his or her metropolis and current their concepts to metropolis leaders. In city-wide challenges, college students find out about local weather motion in cities. They then construct their local weather options in Minecraft Education, a game-based studying platform utilized by hundreds of thousands of academics and college students that evokes artistic, inclusive studying by play.  
• Last 12 months, Xbox had the chance to coach a variety of audiences by studying occasions just like the United Nation’s fiftieth anniversary congress on sustainability, and on to valued companions in bespoke workshop occasions with exterior trade gamers.
• In May of 2022, for the first-ever time, we invited the general public to expertise a collection of the talks from Xfest 2022, considered one of which is ‘A Deeper Look at Gaming Sustainability and How Everyone Can Play Their Part’. This explores how recreation publishers could make an influence by integrating environmental themes in video games, lowering emissions, and supporting the worldwide environmental agenda in collaboration with Xbox.  
• Xbox has continued our work as a founding member of the Playing for the Planet alliance. Playing for the Planet just lately launched the 2022 Annual Impact Report which reveals sturdy progress on decarbonization efforts throughout the trade.

Engage  

Learn About Ocean Conservation on Twitch this Earth Day with Xbox Plays and the Seattle Aquarium

Please be part of Team Xbox on our Twitch livestream channel on April twenty second at 8:00am Pacific Time because the crew shares a behind the scenes tour of the Seattle Aquarium, a conservation group working to regenerate the well being of our one ocean. You’ll meet particular friends like Barney the harbor seal, get an inside take a look at the Aquarium’s work to save lots of endangered species, and see an illustration of a remotely operated automobile steered by way of Xbox controller that’s getting used to analysis the depths of Puget Sound. Marine conservationists and consultants will be part of us dwell to reply your questions concerning the species you’ll discover in the Sound and past, in addition to the steps you possibly can take to assist shield our world’s one ocean.

New Xbox Gear merchandise options recycled content material as effectively, try the most recent assortment that includes colours and topographical traces pulled straight from the Xbox Wireless Controller — Remix Special Edition

Check out the most recent Xbox Gear that includes colours and topographical traces pulled straight from the Xbox Wireless Controller – Remix Special Edition. This assortment encompasses a collection of premium, ECOLIFE cotton clothes. The clothes are made of fifty% recycled yarn and 50% BCI (Better Cotton Initiative– the world’s main sustainability initiative for cotton). The uncooked supplies are reduce & sewn in Los Angeles, garment dyed to match the particular version Xbox controllers, printed with eco-friendly inks and packaged with biodegradable poly baggage. These ECOLIFE cotton clothes can be found as a t-shirt, pullover hoodie and sweat shorts.

Gaming and Impact with Microsoft Rewards: World Wildlife Fund, Water.org, and The Nature Conservancy

Microsoft Rewards members within the United States can earn and donate factors to assist choose environmental organizations with Xbox. The under organizations can be featured on console all through April:

• The Nature Conservancy – The Nature Conservancy is a world environmental nonprofit working to create a world the place folks and nature can thrive. Their mission is to preserve the lands and waters on which all life relies upon.
  • Additionally, for each two {dollars} that Microsoft Rewards donates in April, The Nature Conservancy will plant a tree as a part of their Plant A Billion Trees program. Learn extra about this program right here and plant your tree right now!
• Water.org – Every residing factor requires water to outlive and thrive. Yet 771 million folks around the globe don’t have entry to protected water. Water.org is working to vary this by empowering folks residing in poverty with lasting protected water options for his or her houses. Water.org is devoted to rising entry to this essential useful resource that issues to our planet and everybody that lives on it.
• World Wildlife Fund ​– As the world’s main conservation group, WWF works in practically 100 nations. At each degree, they collaborate with folks around the globe to develop and ship modern options that shield communities, wildlife, and the locations through which they dwell. Their mission is to preserve nature and scale back essentially the most urgent threats to the range of life on Earth.  

Xbox gamers can earn Microsoft Rewards factors in numerous methods, equivalent to enjoying or buying video games after downloading the Microsoft Rewards app on Xbox. Earn factors and redeem them for actual rewards. Join us right now and donate by Xbox. 

To study extra about our continued Sustainability Efforts at Xbox, go to the Xbox Sustainability Hub.

To discover extra methods Microsoft is celebrating Earth Day, go to aka.ms/EarthDay.