Verve Group and Planetly: Carbon-neutral by 2022

About Our Commitment

As part of a global digital and media company, we are excited to announce that through our parent company, Media and Games Invest (MGI), we have joined forces with Planetly to help reduce our carbon footprint. From planting hundreds of thousands of trees to establishing a Sustainability Committee, to joining the UN Global Compact, we’re prioritizing the planet while helping publishers and advertisers achieve their goals. 

“Sustainability plays an important role for MGI for many years already and even more in the future. Together with Planetly, we will work on further improvements towards meeting our target of being carbon neutral from 2022 onwards.”

– Remco Westermann, Chairman of the Board and CEO, Media and Games Invest

Now, we’re working with Planetly to measure our carbon footprint and to evaluate how we can reduce our overall emissions, and make effective, impactful positive changes.

So, What Is Carbon Neutrality and Why Does It Matter?

To understand carbon neutrality, we first have to examine the impact of excess carbon dioxide on our planet. 

Greenhouse gases are gases that lock heat in the atmosphere. These gases form an impenetrable “greenhouse” that traps the heat inside, warming the planet. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) makes up 65% of the world’s greenhouse gases, and as a result, is a leading cause of global climate change.

The vast majority of human-caused carbon emissions occur from burning fossil fuels for things like transportation, energy, and more. 

Adopting sustainable solutions like solar and wind power can help businesses reduce their carbon footprint, and even be carbon negative (that is, offsetting more carbon emissions than they produce). Carbon neutrality is the first step towards carbon negativity: after reducing emissions as much as possible, offsetting any remaining carbon emissions currently required to run a business. 

To offset carbon emissions, you have to fund or create an equivalent carbon savings elsewhere. For example, there is a carbon dioxide impact (or “cost”) to taking a commercial airline flight. You would have to plant a certain number of trees to absorb that specific amount of carbon dioxide and help purify our air, and therefore counterbalance that carbon cost. 

There are many ways to reduce and absorb carbon emissions: investing in green or energy-efficient technologies (like solar and wind, as mentioned before), forest restoration, carbon recapture, and others.

Why We Need To Take Action

By achieving carbon neutrality in the next few years, we can save the planet from an increase in heat by 1.5 degrees Celsius. The Paris Agreement, an environmental protection agreement signed by 195 countries, outlines this goal, too. Many countries are committing to carbon neutrality by 2050.

But 2050 is a long way away, and there’s no time to waste. We’re proud to be part of a company that is working to achieve this critical goal at the earliest — by 2022, just next year. Working with Planetly will help us get there faster, and even helped us achieve neutrality for 2020.

The Business Impact of Carbon Neutrality

Of course, every individual can make a difference. The food you compost, the materials you recycle, the lights you turn out all contribute to making the planet a cleaner, greener place to live. 

But businesses have a responsibility to take drastic action. Businesses all over the world are contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, and as a result, should be focused on reducing their environmental impact. Because businesses are larger entities, even small steps towards a greener future can make a big positive change.

Businesses should do everything in their power to reduce their carbon footprint and offset any remaining emissions. By offsetting the carbon produced by supporting other means, businesses can limit their damage to the planet while promoting positive projects and sustainability. 

In addition to positive planet effects, going carbon neutral (or even carbon negative!) can be good for businesses, too. Apart from helping boost employee morale, a commitment to sustainability can be a competitive advantage. As the demand for responsible businesses grows, those who work towards a greener future will be favored over those who pollute. We are seeing positive shifts across the advertising landscape where advertisers, publishers, and agencies alike are prioritizing addressing climate change in an effort to move towards a more sustainable future. 

Finding ways to limit emissions means improving efficiency. Those efficiencies add up to cost savings for businesses, thus helping the planet and the bottom line.

What Is Planetly?

Planetly is a climate tech company and an accredited partner of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). Planetly makes it easy for companies to manage their carbon footprint. At MGI and Verve Group, we understand the power of data and analytics — the more information we have, the better the decisions we can make. Planetly helps companies analyze their carbon footprint, and provides insights and data to help drive decision making and carbon reduction. 

Equipped with this information, we’ll be able to take positive action to reduce carbon emissions, while making better, greener changes and choices for long-term sustainability.

How We Got Started

To get started, Planetly analyzed MGI’s carbon emissions for the year 2020 for all companies in their portfolio. They measured a total of 4,949t CO2, which includes the CO2 emissions from datacenters, offices, travelling, suppliers, users of MGI games, and beyond.

With this data in hand, we were able to begin reducing our existing footprint, while determining how to counterbalance the rest.

While we will continue greener choices moving forward, our commitment to a more environmentally friendly planet means we need to offset what happened in the past. Offsetting these emissions takes a team effort. For the 2020 offset, MGI employees got to vote for three projects to support from various options across community, nature-based, and energy projects. In the end, we picked one community-based project, one renewable energy project, and one nature preservation-based project, all designed to help reduce reliance on fossil fuels, and invest in sustainable energy and reforestation.  

Between reducing our overall footprint and investing in these projects, we were able to successfully achieve carbon neutrality for the first time for 2020, and look forward to achieving neutrality for 2021 and beyond.

To learn more, you can check out the press release here or visit Planetly.com. We hope you’ll join us in this powerful commitment to a greener world. The planet depends on it!