A new paper by Green Games Guide has addressed a painfully obvious question that has haunted the board games industry for a while now – waste and excessive consumerism, something that the people behind the paper and industry stakeholders themselves want to tackle head-on.
Making the Tabletop Games Industry Sustainable
The paper reunites designers, industry representatives and academics, who are confident that they can pool their efforts and make the tabletop game industry more sustainable. Green Games Guide argue that there are many ways to work towards the betterment of the industry and lessening its environmental impact, or making it sustainable altogether.
There are plenty of good examples as well, from printing houses that use renewable energy or are completely powered by it, to sustainable sourcing and smart box designs. As Green Games Guide put it, the goal is to ensure that the board games hobby stops contributing to environmental destruction and wasteful consumerism.
Green Games Guide assesses and offers solutions to today’s problems in the 28-page guide that touches on numerous topics, from manufacturing to distribution, to the game design itself. The guide also calls for a more holistic approach that wants to take into account not just how games are made – but how components are recycled after they have expired.
As suggested many times over, minimizing the size of game boxes comes first, with excessive materials cut to a minimum.
The size of the box walks a fine line between fitting inner components without compromising on ease of access and not leaving too much empty space.
Green Games Guides
There is a growing trend to shift away from plastic components and focus on the responsible sourcing of wooden and cardboard components instead. Green Games Guide is not so much a criticism as it is a path to solving an increasingly pressing problem.
Good Examples of Sustainability Do Exist
Companies can pick from grades and options, helping companies to decide how to choose more sustainable solutions. Players too can start looking for games that have Forest Stewardship Council and other certifications that attest to the product’s sustainability. Green Games Guide also offers some good examples of how games can be sustainable, citing Kingdomino as a good example.
King Domino for example delivers components that are pre-punched and thus cut out the extra weight and unnecessary waste. The guide is well worth reading in its entirety and can be found in Green Games Guide.