One of the best news to come from the video games industry recently was Sports Interactive’s decision to ditch plastic for 100% recyclable cardboard to make the physical packaging of Football Manager 2020.

Recently, Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced a partnership with the United Nations, specifically chipping in to the Playing For The Planet initiative which focuses on using video games to raise awareness about climate change and also encourage actions that combat the harmful phenomena.

Jim Ryan, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, said that the next PlayStation console will have a power-saving mode that is significantly more efficient than what’s been achievable on the PS4.

“I am also very pleased to announce the next generation PlayStation console will include the possibility to suspend gameplay with much lower power consumption than PS4 (which we estimate can be achieved at around 0.5 W). If just one million users enable this feature, it would save equivalent to the average electricity use of 1,000 US homes.”

– Jim Ryan, President and CEO of SIE.

The SIE CEO also emphasised that the company will be working on potential PS VR applications that “can raise awareness of climate issues and climate experts”. Games like Minecraft, Angry Birds, and Pokemon Go have been used to promote ideas on climate change and pollution reduction so it’s good that the UN is looking for more ways to maximise this positive relationship.

To read Jim Ryan’s full announcement, click here.