Since our company’s founding nearly six years ago, our focus has been on creating fun and exciting idle games for our continuously expanding community of players around the world. We’ve stuck to something we know well, and we’ve been very good at it! Over 100 million installs later, and with a portfolio of several games now leading the genre, game making has been central to our identity.
With that success came a bigger team, new ideas, and an increased connection to our community. While game development is still our primary focus, having had so many passionate people join our company has also been great, as it’s allowed us to become active in other important initiatives. For example, in 2019 we launched a volunteering program, where Kolibris take part in activities to give back to the local community.
Our corporate social responsibility program was a springboard for looking at new ways we can play our part in supporting causes we believe in, and few causes are more pressing to the world than the ongoing climate crisis.
As a business with a global player base, and in an industry which in 2016 alone created the equivalent of five million cars worth of carbon emissions, it became important to self-reflect and assess what we can be doing to lessen our impact on the environment and how we can create a more sustainable business.
Ultimately we decided it was time to create a sustainability program of our own, with the long-term goal of working towards climate neutrality.
That decision led us to Planetly. a technology company that provides software for tracking carbon emissions. Being that we are just beginners in carbon tracking and sustainability, their guidance was crucial in allowing us to understand and track our carbon output.
So began the process of figuring out just how much carbon we emit!
Carbon tracking works in tiers, at least this is how we approached it. These three tiers go as follows:
- Direct emissions: Emissions coming from sources like heating, electricity, etc.
- Indirect emissions (internal): Business travel, commuting, procurement
- Indirect emissions (external): Player emissions
The last one was a surprise to us. Our carbon footprint is directly correlated to the number of players we have, and the time they spend on their mobile devices playing our games…and creating CO2 emissions.
All in all, gathering the data and calculating our emissions was a challenging process, but one we were excited to undertake. Ultimately, with the help of several Kolibris from other departments including data, finance, and human resources, we were able to complete the tracking process.
What Lies Ahead?
Keeping in line with the Net Zero Initiative, which aims to achieve the goal of net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2050, we’re aware that we are just a small part of a much larger global effort to reverse current trends. Increasingly though, we are taking steps to make contributions to that goal.
Our new office, which we’ll move into by the end of the year, will run on green energy, and we have planned to make a carbon contribution equaling the sum of our 2019 and 2020 CO2 emissions in the coming months, as part of our partnership with Planetly.
This has been an important learning process for one, and it’s not over yet. Our aim is to lower our carbon footprint every year for the next years to come. Of course, this isn’t a top-down initiative either. We are inviting all Kolibris to join in and take part in our efforts. Stay tuned for what internal green initiatives will arise in the coming months.
Whether it be through donation drives, company ‘Green Weeks’, and other activities, sustainability is becoming a central part of who we are as a brand.
If you want to join our journey towards a greener games industry, check out our open positions below: