While big fossil fuel consumers — factories and power plants and manufactures — are still spinning the myth about climate change not being a threat, the world is heating up. We are already facing sudden and extreme weather changes, huge air pollution, and existential dread about the planet’s future collapse which can’t be good for us as a species.
World-leading companies like Microsoft and Apple recognized the severity of environmental problems and tried to go carbon-free — and tech companies aren’t the only ones. Other industries — retail, sport, even gambling — also take part. For instance, House of Pokies cooperates with environmentally-friendly game providers like IGT and promotes online gambling ’cause it’s less harmful to nature than real-world casinos.
Let’s review a few current environmental issues and see how different industries cope with them.
What Is the Current Situation of Our Ecology?
Annual global climate finance reached a mind-boggling $632 billion. All this money is allocated to save our planet and improve the quality of life worldwide. There are quite a few issues we need to resolve. Environmental pollution, global warming, and Earth’s deformations are the main ones that humanity needs to address.
Businesses resort to intensive agriculture that often involves chemical fertilizers to provide resources for more people. An increasing number of chemical fertilizers used in agriculture leads to contamination of groundwater and other water sources. The United Nations released a grim statistic showing that 26% of the world’s population lacks access to clean water. It brings us to another significant issue — pollution.
There are different types of pollution. Pollution of air, soil, and water are interconnected and require many years to recoup. Exhaust gases emitted by planes and motor vehicles cause 29% of CO2 and burning of fossil fuel for electricity (25%) while manufacture within industries (23%) take second and third places for contributing to global emissions. The sports industry also contributes to the contamination of the environment, adding to land contamination and air pollution.
The emission of greenhouse gases like CO2 and water vapor is the chief cause of global warming. It causes the temperature to heat up by 0.2°C every decade. It causes permafrost thaw and drought in places where nature is not used to the heat, not to mention other natural disasters caused by climate change like flash floods, wildfires, hurricanes, and desertification.
How Have Online Casinos Helped Improve the Environment?
Las Vegas is the capital of land-based casinos. More than 16 million people have already visited Las Vegas this year. A big chunk of these people (73%) gambled at Las Vegas casinos. Land-based casinos require a lot of power for machines, lights, air conditioners, etc. to work. Also, most gamblers drive vast distances just to play at real casinos — and an average car emits around 411 grams of CO2 per mile.
The online casino significantly reduces the level of CO2 emissions the gambling industry is responsible for — people don’t have to travel anywhere, they can just gamble at home with a cup of tea.
Another downside of real casinos is inefficient land use. Land is a valuable resource. One land casino can take up to 34,000 m2. All that space could have been used for renewable energy generators like solar panels — or, we don’t know, a park with a sustainable ecosystem. Online casinos kind of don’t need land — and, therefore, don’t need to waste the land, water, energy, etc. (Imagine how great it would be if the same could have been done to golf fields.)
Online casino game developers like IGT bring tremendous environmental changes as well. By 2020 alone, the company has removed over 7.1 million pounds of landfill waste, 1 million of which was used to make alternative fuel.
How the Sport Industry is Helping the Environment?
Sport is a multi-billion industry. Despite its decline from $458.8 billion to $388.3 billion, the industry is projected to hit almost $600 billion three years in the future.
The Olympic Games are a pinnacle of the sports industry. It’s an event that happens every two years and leads to humongous financial expenses. A record-breaking sum of $51 billion was spent to organize the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014. However, one of the most notorious examples of resource waste is the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. The country’s government spent $13.1 billion on organizing the event that failed to bring any profit to the country. The event led to a $2 billion in loss, and almost all the facilities are decaying right now, remaining unused since then.
Fearing financial losses, most cities like Oslo withdraw from hosting the Olympics. Financial losses are not the only reason people frown upon becoming hostages for sports events of such scale. It’s also because building enormous stadiums and maintaining them in a good condition often aren’t sustainable for countries and their citizens. For instance, maintaining green fields requires using herbicides, pesticides, and millions of liters of water per year — and that’s without saying that lawns are ecosystem-killers.
Sports organizations try to keep up with the latest eco-initiatives. The International Ski Federation (FIS), FIFA, and others joined the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The framework’s ambition is to reach net-zero carbon emissions in the world by 2040.
With a yearly revenue of $37.4 billion, Nike is the world’s leading sportswear brand. Knowing about its influence, the company tries to set an example of sustainable development for other countries to follow. The company’s vision includes:
- Reduction of green gas emissions by 70% in all company’s facilities by 2025;
- Restoration of 13 billion liters of water through a portfolio of projects and reduction of freshwater usage by 25% per kg in textile dyeing and finishing;
- Reduction of waste per unit in its headquarters by 10%, including the waste in packaging, manufacturing, and other facilities.
It’s only a fraction of things that Nike is trying to accomplish on its way to being more eco-friendly. (That, however, doesn’t say anything about labor rights and workers exploitation companies are doing — but hey, that’s something.)
How Tech Companies Are Helping the Environment?
Big Tech companies hold the biggest share of the world’s funds. This group of companies includes Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet (Google), Apple, and Amazon. Besides having a big influence on people and owning a lot of money, they try to structure their organizational system in the most eco-friendly way. Let’s see how some of them do it.
Microsoft’s activities have been fully carbon-neutral since 2012. Furthermore, the company charges a carbon fee to all organizations they cooperate with for their carbon footprint. They use the money to sponsor initiatives that promote carbon reduction.
Data centers are responsible for 2% of global CO2 emissions. Google owns a lot of data centers and since 2016 has been using AI systems that manage the temperature at its facilities. By doing so, the company saves up to 40% of the energy that otherwise would have been wasted. The company supplies almost all of its facilities with energy that comes from renewable sources. Furthermore, 22 of the company’s suppliers are Zero Waste certified. The company’s objective is to go 100% carbon-neutral by 2030.
The carbon dioxide emissions almost doubled in the last three decades. It’s estimated that 99% of the world’s population breathes in CO2-polluted harmful air. It’s crucial to come up with sustainable energy solutions before it’s too late — and it’s good to see that more and more industries are starting to aim at achieving net-zero.