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

Summary

In an effort to reduce waste, we have been introducing more recovered plastics to our portfolio, and most recently launched the Xbox Wireless Controller – Remix Special Edition made partly from reclaimed CDs, water jugs, and other controllers’ parts.
With new features and settings being added to your console, we are finding ways to reduce the carbon footprint of our business and our players.
Explore special edition Earth Day events and products.

Just days ahead of Earth Day, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on some of the work that we are doing to protect our planet and share opportunities for our community to celebrate alongside us.

At Microsoft, we have set the commitments to operate as a carbon negative, water positive and zero waste company by 2030. Microsoft strives to empower the world to do more, and driving positive, transformational change requires thinking beyond traditional boundaries. Gaming provides an incredible platform to drive cultural change on a global scale and encourage players to explore, experiment, and connect with the world and with each other in new ways. Sustainability is a team sport—and we are excited to see how far we can go when everyone plays together.

An Update on our Sustainability Efforts

Last year, we shared an update on our sustainability efforts. Here is what we have been up to since:

Reducing Waste:

The Xbox Wireless Controller – Remix Special Edition takes us one step further in our journey towards our zero-waste commitment, featuring recovered plastics with one-third of it made from regrind and reclaimed materials. By incorporating regrind materials, post-consumer recycled resins, and including the Xbox Rechargeable Battery Pack – Xbox is exploring ways to use less new plastic and reduce waste. Check out the unboxing video below to learn more!

More things we are doing to reduce the waste we create and use as a business, and help Microsoft achieve our goal of operating as a zero-waste business by 2030:

We are increasingly finding new opportunities to incorporate recovered plastics into our controllers. We started with the Daystrike Camo and the Electric Volt controller and have been transitioning some of the controllers already in the market to contain more Post-Consumer Recycled resins (PCR), including our Shock Blue and Pulse Red controllers. Visit the Xbox Sustainability Hub to view a collection of controllers that contain 20% or more PCR content.
Xbox Design Lab, our controller customization platform, launched with 15 new colors that contain Post-Consumer Recycled plastic. Since then, we have transitioned most of the color options offered on the platform to contain PCR.
In the Nordic region (Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland), we partnered with retail partner Elkjøp to launch the Urban Miner campaign, where we invited all Nordic households to collect old electronics in their households and return them to an Elkjøp store for recycling. In return, the consumers received Minecoins for use on the Minecraft Marketplace. The campaign resulted in more than 11,000 items returned, representing approximately 17 tons of electronic waste.
Microsoft has eliminated the usage of polystyrene on new point-of-sale activation (POSA) cards (like gift cards) transitioning to paperboard across our partners. We have also changed the plastic bags in which we used to bundle our POSA cards to paper bands in most of our markets, which we expect will avoid the equivalent of over 2 million plastic bags over the next two fiscal years.

Carbon Reduction:

At Game Developer Conference (GDC) this year, we announced that Xbox is the first console to release dedicated energy and carbon emissions measurement tools designed for (and with) game creators. Using these tools, studios and game developers have found opportunities through game design to lower their carbon emissions without impacting the player experience. To learn more about the Xbox sustainability toolkit, watch the video below!

At Xbox, we hold ourselves accountable to the emissions created by our products in our players’ homes—here are some additional things we are doing to reduce those emissions.

In January, we announced that Xbox is the first Carbon Aware console. When your console is plugged in, connected to the Internet and regional carbon intensity data is available, Xbox will schedule game, app, and OS updates for your console at specific times during the nightly maintenance window that may result in lower carbon emissions because a higher proportion of electricity is coming from lower-carbon sources on the electric grid.
At the same time, we began experimenting with automatically updating consoles to the Shutdown (energy saving) power mode and are bringing these updates to more consoles throughout the year.
We also provided the “Active Hours” option for those that want to use the more energy intensive Sleep power option. This allows players to select the hours that they want to use Sleep mode features like remote wake. The console will fully shutdown outside of those hours (using up to 20x less power when turned off vs. Sleep). Players can select for their console to automatically schedule their active hours, to configure a manual schedule, or to keep their console always active.

Collective Action:

We are always looking for opportunities to partner with players, industry partners and external organizations to make gaming a better industry for the environment. To learn more about these partnerships, watch the video below: