2024-05-16
We’re delighted and honoured that our CEO Rhea Loucas has been named a Finalist in the Sustainability category of the Develop:Star Awards 2024.
Taking place On July 10th during the Develop:Brighton conference, the awards recognise the best of the games development community and cover 22 categories, plus the Develop Star award for outstanding achievement.
The Sustainability Star award recognises an individual, team or company that has passionately embraced the cause and put in place significant changes to the way their studio or company works to reduce impact and be more sustainable.
In 2023 PlanetPlay Founder & CEO Rhea Loucas drove significant progress towards our industry’s sustainability via the company’s primary mission: to be a disruptive NPO, harnessing the power of 3+ billion players within a $190+ billion industry to effect change through the best games and biggest superstars in the world.
Under Rhea’s passionate and clear-minded leadership PlanetPlay’s goal is to show that it’s possible to create a system that is 100% dedicated to making the world a better place by unlocking what we call the ‘passive activism’ of gamers globally. 100% of what PlanetPlay generates goes green.
PlanetPlay has achieved this by empowering studios and publishers to make special ‘green’ items available within their games, with the benefit of receiving certified carbon credits (Verra and GoldStandard) equivalent to their revenue.
The recent launch of PlanetPlay’s Make Green Tuesday Moves will take this important initiative forward. All the world’s gamers need to do is continue playing the games they love, with no change in style or habit required to contribute to amazing sustainability causes.
PlanetPlay also runs advisory sessions to help a studio assess its own ‘green’ baseline, then works with the team to create a plan for achieving the goals they set.
It also encourages and conducts non-invasive in-game player surveys to help studios understand their players and their environmental concerns on a whole new level.
As the CEO of a dedicated non-profit organisation committed to combating the climate crisis, Rhea believes the best approach is to start from real actions. PlanetPlay prioritises the strategic allocation of funds raised from game community to high-impact climate projects, focusing on both carbon removal and carbon reduction as a dual-pronged approach, with verifiable results. Following thorough due diligence, it also considers the multiple SDG benefits of these projects.
Rhea has been shortlisted in the category alongside Green Game Jam, nDreams, Smartdc, Sports Interactive and YRS TRULY.
She said: “With over three billion players worldwide, the games industry is in a unique position to leverage significant change when it comes to driving climate change action. I’m honoured to be shortlisted for the Develop:Star Sustainability Award and applaud the other finalists in the category for their commitment to sustainability efforts.”
The full list of finalists for the Develop:Star Awards 2024 are:
Best Game
Best Studio
Best Small Studio
Publishing Star
Best Mobile Game
Best Creative Lead
Best Game Design
Best Audio
Best Visual Art
Best Narrative
Best Original IP
Tomorrow’s Star
Marketing Star
Best Technical Innovation
Best Creative Provider
Diversity Star
Supporting Star
Talent Development Star
Best Technology Provider
Recruitment Star
Sustainability Star
Best QA & Localisation
The Develop Star will be announced in the coming weeks.
Voting for the awards begins now – and we would be honoured if you were to consider voting for Rhea. Click here to vote.