The environmental impact of video and board games

summary

1. Life cycle assessment
2. Literature review
3. Results
   • Video game results
   • Board game results
4. Key messages
5. Glossary
6. References

Life cycle assessment

To assess the environmental impact of a product or a service, we use a method named the life cycle assessment (LCA) method. It consists in following the value chain of a product to compute its environmental impact at each step of its life cycle.

The life cycle should include the following steps:

1. The extraction of materials needed for the product/service,
2. The manufacturing of the product with the extracted materials or the manufacturing of products needed to provide the service,
3. The distribution of the product to the customer, also named transport,
4. The use of the product,
5. And finally, its end of life.

The impact of the use of the product usually comes from the electricity needed for the product to work, if electricity is needed. In the case of a board game, the use phase has no impact. The end of life stage can either be the recycling of the product, its incineration or landfill disposal.

Each stage can be broken down into processes executed during that part. For example, to produce plastic sheets used to wrap the board games components, we have to thermoform plastic pellets. Another example is the extraction of metals for the console’s electronics. For instance, to obtain iron, various machines that run on fossil fuel are needed to excavate a mine, extract the metal and bring it to the manufacturing facility.

The first step to compute the environmental impact is to make a list of all the processes involved in the product’s life cycle. Then, a database is used to compute the environmental impact. We can find databases, like the ecoinvent database, that contain the environmental impact of processes that are found in our society. Using these processes, the environmental impact of our product or service can be computed as we broke down its life cycle into these processes beforehand.

This method differentiates itself from the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol or Carbon Footprint method as it considers the entire life cycle of the product, while the GHG Protocol is less transparent, making uncertain what is included in the scope and what is not. Some crucial steps of the life cycle can be missed. Furthermore, the LCA method can compute the environmental impact across various indicators, such as climate change, but also water use, fossil energy use and many others, depending on the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) method used. This gives a holistic vision of the environmental impact, which should help limit burden shifts between indicators. To give a concrete example of how the environmental impact is quantified, climate change is computed in [kg of CO2 eq]. The indicator shows a quantity of kg of CO2 equivalent that is emitted during a process. Each indicator has its own unit. Each process in the ecoinvent database has a defined quantity for each indicator that can be used to compute the environmental impact of a specific product.

Literature Review

Only a few research studies have been conducted on the environmental impact of video and board games using the LCA method. In the field of video games, one can note the work of ADEME and I Care on the “Evaluation de l’impact environnemental de la digitalisation des services culturels” (Assessing the environmental impact of digitising cultural services) (Meyer et al., 2022). In this work, the authors present the environmental impact of playing 1 hour of video games through seven scenarios:

• Playing with a console, with disc and offline,
• Playing with a console, downloaded game, offline,
• Playing with a console, downloaded game, online,
• Playing with a laptop, downloaded game, online,
• Playing with a desktop computer, downloaded game, online,
• Playing in cloud gaming with a console, online
• Playing in cloud gaming with a TV box, online.

The results are presented across seven indicators of the Environmental Footprint (EF) v3.0 LCIA method. The indicators chosen in the study are the following: climate change, acidification, particulate matter, mineral and metal resources, freshwater ecotoxicity, ionising radiation, and water use. The results are computed for France in 2020. I was able to conduct a sensitivity analysis to provide the results for Switzerland using the ecoinvent database. The impact changed very little. Thus, results for France are shown in this blog post.

In the board game field, one should mention the study realised by Didier Lanquetin and the Union des Éditeurs de Jeux de Société (UEJ, Union of Board game Publishers) (Villiot and Lanquetin, 2020). The study presents the environmental impact of 1000 board games for three box sizes: small, medium and large, for all sixteen indicators of the EF v3.0 LCIA method.

Results

Video game results

Figure 1 shows the relative environmental impact of five video game scenarios for seven indicators of the EF v3.0 LCIA method. From (Meyer et al., 2022), the impact of the console scenarios – disc, offline vs. downloaded game, offline vs. downloaded game, online – are approximately the same, thus only the latter is represented in this blog post. Furthermore, a phone scenario was computed with data from (Meyer et al., 2022). All the hypotheses of the scenarios can be found in (Meyer et al., 2022).

For all indicators, the phone and laptop scenarios are respectively the least and second least impactful scenario. This can be explained by the fact that both equipment are used for other activities than playing. The total time they are used is longer than a console, for example. The fraction of the impact of the equipment manufacturing allocated to one hour of play time is smaller in the laptop case than in the console one. Over the entire use stage, the console is used twice less than a laptop, thus its impact is twice bigger as their manufacturing impacts are roughly the same.

The third least impactful scenario is the desktop computer, followed by the console for the first five indicators. However, for the last two indicators, their impacts are almost equivalent. Furthermore, the desktop computer usually needs more resources to be built than a laptop. Thus, the desktop computer is more impactful than the laptop.

Finally, the cloud gaming scenario is the most impactful one. It needs equipment to play (for example a console) and also requires a large information flow that is transmitted from servers (where the game runs) to the equipment of the player. This has a huge impact on the environment as it requires a large amount of resources. Materials are needed to build the servers on which the game runs and the infrastructure to transmit the data to the player. Furthermore, electricity is also needed to run the servers as well as transmit the data.

Figure 2 shows the relative environmental impact of the console scenario on seven indicators of the EF v3.0 LCIA method over the following life cycle stages: manufacturing (which also includes the extraction of raw materials), transport, use and end of life. The console scenario presented uses a downloaded game from the internet and is played online. The manufacturing of the equipment to play is the most impactful stage on climate change, acidification, mineral and metal resources and freshwater ecotoxicity. The use stage is the most impactful for particulate matter and ionising radiation. Finally, the end-of-life is the most impactful stage for the water use indicator. Overall, the manufacturing stage appears to be the most impactful stage on the environment. It is the biggest lever to reduce the environmental impact of playing video games. To make it happen, it is crucial to keep our equipment the longest we can and avoid as much as possible buying new products.

board game results

Figure 3 shows the environmental impact of the three board game scenarios for seven indicators of the EF v3.0 LCIA method. All the hypotheses on the content of the games can be found in (Villiot and Lanquetin, 2020). To summarise, the small game contains cards, a box, a punchboard, rules, a plastic sheet around the box and cards, and weights approximately 250 g. The medium game also includes wood pawns and dice and weights around 500 g. The big game also features plastic figurines, a game board and weights around 1.8 kg.

For all indicators, a small game is less impactful than a medium-size game, which is less impactful than a large game. This can be understood as the smaller the game, the lesser the quantity of material required for production, resulting in less impact on the environment. One can also guess a linear relation between the weight of the game and its environmental impact. When the weight is doubled, the impact is doubled (small to medium-size game). And when the weight is tripled, the impact is approximately tripled (medium-size to large game).

Figure 4 shows the relative environmental impact of the large board game scenario for seven indicators of the EF v3.0 LCIA method according to the type of material used in the game and the transport of the game. All the hypotheses to obtain these results can be found in (Villiot and Lanquetin, 2020).

It is clear that, for all indicators, the most impactful process is the production of paper and cardboard components of the board game. This comes from the fact that it is the predominant component by weight. The impact of plastic used for packaging and figurines is negligible. The impact of wood is also negligible. The impact of transport is non negligible but much less significant than that of paper and cardboard. Therefore, reducing the quantity of paper and cardboard in board games is the biggest lever for environmental impact reduction. Avoiding adding paper and cardboard where it is not necessary is essential.

key messages

• The LCA method should be used to compute the environmental impact of a product or a service.
• Two references exist on the environmental impact of games, (Meyer et al., 2022) and (Villiot and Lanquetin, 2020), respectively for video and board games. They both use the LCA method.
• Playing games on equipment with a long lifespan reduces the environmental impact of playing.
• The manufacturing of equipment is the most impactful life cycle stage in the console scenario.
• The heavier the board game, the more impact it has on the environment.
• In board games, paper and cardboard are the most impactful elements on the environment due to their predominant quantities in games.
• The most sustainable game/equipment is the one you already have!

glossary

• LCA: Life Cycle Assessment
• LCIA: Life Cycle Impact Assessment
• EF: Environmental Footprint

references

1. ecoinvent, https://ecoinvent.org/ (accessed 9 April 2025)
2. MEYER Julia, NICO Tom, BURGUBURU Alexis, RIGAL Margot, LIZON Benjamin, GENIN Léo, CATALAN Caroline, and ADAM Isaure, ADEME, 2022, Evaluation de l’impact environnemental de la digitalisation des services culturels, https://www.enssib.fr/bibliotheque-numerique/documents/71161-evaluation-de-l-impact-environnemental-de-la-digitalisation-des-services-culturels.pdf (accessed 10 April 2025)
3. VILLIOT Simon and LANQUETIN Didier, AXESS Qualité, 8 June 2020, Analyse du cycle de vie (ACV) de trois formats de jeux de plateau pour l’Union des Éditeurs de Jeux de Société, https://uej.fr/ (you can contact the UEJ to access their report)

AUTHOR

Lina Picasso, lina.picasso@etik.com, LinkedIn