In an Xbox Wire blogpost released today, Dave McCarthy (Corporate Vice President of Xbox Operations) detailed a significant update to Xbox’s manufacturing, energy management, and recycling programs geared towards reducing the company’s carbon footprint, whilst empowering users to assist in this goal. All of which is in line with the overall company’s goals and measures, as detailed in the 2021 Environmental Sustainability report released by Microsoft today.
The goals to be carbon negative, water positive, and producing zero waste by 2030 aim to be achieved by a number of methods as described in the post, beginning with the measures that have already been taken by the company as of this release:
- A small collection of consoles have already been embedded with an enhanced power monitoring system to garner expanded telemetric data on energy consumption in real-world usage, all of which is collected anonymously.
- As of the latter half of 2021, the Xbox Series S became the first console to incorporate PCR resins into the body and other components, much like a number of already-released Xbox Series controllers (such as the Electric Volt).
- In addition to improvements already made to the Xbox consoles’ Energy Saver mode last year, the recent March update improves the mode further by allowing game and system updates to be downloaded. This energy mode is now the default option for new console setups as well, to further improve energy reduction.
Additionally, as suggested by the company, their efforts will continue with additional measures spanning the next eight years.
- By 2030, Xbox products, accessories, and packaging will be 100% recyclable in OECD countries (the Xbox Series X|S consoles are currently rated at 97% recyclable).
- By 2025, Xbox’s Cloud Gaming’s Azure datacenters will move to 100% renewable energy.
The post describes a bevy of other measures already taken and initiatives currently in effect to move the company towards its environmentally friendly goals. Given the recent findings by the United Nations in their Climate Change Report, these measures are greatly appreciated given the impact that corporations and governments ultimately have on the environment and the subsequent resource and climate challenges the world faces.
