GREAT at the Websummit, Lisbon, 14th November 2024

Lisbon, Portugal – November 14th, 2024: Partners of the GREAT project took to the stage at this year’s Web Summit to present its bold vision of how video games can become a powerful tool in the fight against climate change.

In a panel on November 14 titled Climate Change is Not a Game: Harnessing Gamers’ Insights for Policy and Action, GREAT’s peers from the worlds of video games and academia discussed, for the first time publicly, the Play2Act Climate and Nature Survey, to explore some of the initial findings. Panel participants include PlanetPlay CSO Jude Ower MBE, Lockwood CEO Halli Bjornsson, and Professor Paul Hollins of Bolton University, alongside session chair Amanda Lima, Editor-in-Chief at DN Brasil.

Play2Act was officially launched in September 2024, gathering public opinion on how video games can be used to tackle climate and nature challenges. Interactive in-game polls have already gathered insights from over 750,000 players across 227 territories, revealing a growing belief in gaming’s potential to drive real-world change.

In fact, around 50% of respondents stated they feel that games can play a role in solving climate change and environmental issues, and approximately 50% of respondents stated they changed habits due to playing gaming content which promoted positive planetary action. These outstanding results build on previous research from Yale which revealed that gamers tend to care about climate change slightly more than non-gamers.