Keeping Coatsink Carbon Neutral – 2024

We’ve done it again! It’s July 2024 and round three carbon footprint calculating and offsetting* is done meaning another year of Coatsink activities are carbon neutral! (Round of applause!)

We’ve now got three years worth of data to compare…
– Round 1: April 20 – March 21: 159.52 t CO₂e (the equivalent of about 18 Europeans)

– Round 2: April 21 – March 22: 223.37 t CO₂e (about 26 Europeans)

– Round 3: April 22 – March 23: 220.29 t CO₂e (about 25 Europeans)

As we talked about in last year’s blog update, we knew our first footprint would be our smallest, (it was a strange time – covid, no studio, no commuting and no events), so it was no surprise when our round two footprint came back significantly larger. Our round 3 footprint has remained similar in size but there are a couple of significant changes in the contributors.

The majority of our emissions continue to come from Scope 3 sources, 95.5% = 210t (previously 96.7% = 216t), plus a little Scope 2 emissions, 4.5% = 10t (previously 3.3% = 7t). Scope 2 includes purchased electricity for the studio, 3.6% = 8t (previously 2.4% = 5t) and purchased heating and cooling for the studio, 0.9% = 2t (previously also 0.9% = 2t). (t = tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, rounded to the nearest whole number).

Taking a closer look at our largest scope 3 emission sources, or hotspots, there are a few areas in particular that are notably different between the last two rounds…

(** water, upstream emissions heat, employee commuting and business travel)
(*** business travel excl. flights, external data centres, water, upstream emissions heat & cooling)

In round 2, our biggest scope 3 emission source was external data centres which includes storage services such as Google, GitHub, Slack etc, but also our game data which is our game downloads and our player user data. While our use of storage services increased between the two rounds, our game data significantly decreased, meaning external data centres didn’t actually feature as a round 3 hotspot.

While initially surprising, after a little investigating, the decrease begins to make sense. Two of our games were early in their release in round 2 and were free to download so, as a result, downloads were significant. By round 3, those games were no longer free to download and figures were more representative of the tail end of sales. Just taking those two titles into account, the reduced downloads between round 2 and round 3 accounts for the vast majority of the difference. Unpredictable and varying sales means their impact on our footprint is hard to anticipate and susceptible to significant fluctuation; it will be an interesting area to monitor going forward. 

In round 3, our second biggest scope 3 emission source was flights, something which didn’t feature at all in round 2 as a continuing result of covid and the reduction in in person events and business travel. In round 3 events and business travel were back to business as usual and we can expect this to be a trend that continues.

Another notable hotspot difference is an increase in employee commuting from round 2 to round 3, again likely a result of covid reducing and subsequently more staff choosing to work from the studio more often. Operational waste, which refers to the overall waste from our studio and is calculated using average waste disposal for a company of our size and the default distance for an average disposal of 25km, was included in round 2 but omitted in error in round 3; it will again be included going forward from round 4.

*ClimatePartner has moved away from the term “offsetting” to prevent the misconception that offsetting translates to climate action, neutralising environmental impact and leading to complacency with actual reductions in emissions. “Financial climate contribution” (or FCC) instead highlights the active role of contributing to climate action, underscoring the notion of collective effort and the financial support required to combat climate change.

With that in mind, Coatsink has decided to double the amount of our financial climate contribution this round, covering 200% (442t CO₂e) of our emissions and, with the help of our team, we’ve chosen to invest in three very worthy, certified projects: a forest protection project in Cujubim, Brazil, a clean drinking water project across Laos, Southeast Asia, and a project combining improved cookstoves in India and ocean protection worldwide; follow the links to learn more about each of the projects and Coatsink’s contribution to them. To view our financial climate contribution certificates for this round, click here.

Watch this space for round 4 (coming later this year!) and check out our round-up of our day spent with the Tyne Rivers Trust, an environmental charity dedicated to improving the River Tyne and its catchment, removing invasive species from the banks of the Tyne at Wylam, Northumberland.

As always, thanks very much to everyone who was involved this round. Special thanks to our COO Eddie, Head of Studio Rich, IT Manager Martin, Partner Relations Manager Jack, and our new ClimatePartner Sustainability Consultant Mychelle!