As artists in the 21st century, we need to take our carbon footprint into account when making our work to preserve the planet for future generations. I’ve previously heard about the immense amount of environmental resources that gaming requires, and I wanted to take a more detailed look at what this means for the VR industry, and hopefully try to find examples of companies attempting to work sustainably.
Having done some thinking and research, there are multiple ways in which VR can be harmful to the environment. Most advanced VR hardware is made from plastic, which in turn is usually is made from fossil fuels, and the process of turning the fossil fuels into plastic is also very resource intensive. There’s also the question of waste, after the technology has passed its prime and people move on to the next most advanced option. Whilst the hardware at the moment is generally of a good quality and built to last, this might not be the case in the future as the technology becomes more readily accessible, and we might see something akin to smartphones in recent years, where products gradually deteriorate over quite a short amount of time, creating a lot of ‘digital waste’. There are products such as Google Cardboard which aim to be a more sustainable way of accessing VR, however these really aren’t very advanced and require a smartphone.
According to a 2019 peer-reviewed study(1) on the environmental impacts of gaming, 24 megatons of carbon dioxide are made each year from the US alone when it comes to energy use. This doesn’t even take into account the other factors I mentioned in the paragraph above.
When researching companies that are trying to do something about the impact on the planet from VR and gaming, I could find surprisingly few examples. There were a few articles about certain industries moving a few operations over to VR to reduce carbon emissions (such as aerospace, car manufacturing and oil), but not any statements from companies that are leading the VR revolution on how they might pledge to keep their impact low. Also, from the industries I’ve found that do use it, it seems more like virtue signalling than meaningful change. Hopefully time will change this, but I’m not so sure.
Ultimately, I don’t think there’s enough being done to make sure that the VR industry is sustainable. Then again, the same can be said for most industries.
References
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40869-019-00084-2