GotGame 590 is reporting on a fantastic initiative launched by Ubisoft to leave behind a smaller environmental footprint for their games.

As an environmentally conscious person the idea of saving paper and reducing the use of plastics used in the production and distribution channel for games is like marrying two of my favourite things.

Quote from GotGame590:
Ubisoft says that for each ton of paper they don’t use to make manuals, they’ll be saving approximately:

  • 2 tons of wood (13 trees)
  • 28 million BTU’s (British Thermal Unit)
  • Over 6,000 lbs of CO2 in greenhouse gases
  • 15,000 gallons of wastewater

Ubisoft began using digital in-game manuals last month when they started this same program for their North American PC releases, but it seems like they feel that there’s still room to improve.

Further to just saving trees Ubisoft is also moving to use 100% recycled plastics in their PC DVD cases… Hopefully this will bleed over to their console releases as well.

I’m a huge fan of this idea as I hardy ever read an actual manual, Gaming companies will be able to modify the manual to included DLC information and the move to environmentally friendly products is in line with many of the other choices people are faced with on a daily basis when working to reduce their environmental footprint.

* Image thanks to http://www.gamesmontreal.com