The company’s famed slogan might be “it’s in the game”, but Electronic Arts (EA) Sports is doing a lot more away from its gaming operations to push for greater social and environmental sustainability.
The video game producer has taken significant strides to make its operations more environmentally friendly as it strives to meet its long-term target to become carbon neutral by 2027, and it is also committed to becoming a net zero company in line with the Paris Agreement signed in 2016.
Additionally, its Global Green Team has now grown to more than 900 people working in various positions across the company. The group was formed to coordinate a range of internal and community-based environmental actions focused on creating a sustainable future for its employees, video game players and the communities in which they all live.
As well as becoming a more environmentally sustainable company, EA Sports is also using its platform as the producer of some of the world’s most popular video games to make the gaming industry more accessible and inclusive.
Making the video game industry more accessible
As part of its goal to widen accessibility to the video game industry, EA has invested in science, technology, engineering, art and maths (STEM) education, donating US$1.5 million during the 2023 financial year to organisations that bring STEM to unrepresented youth.
At the heart of EA’s commitment to STEM education is the ‘Play to Learn’ initiative, which the company has been running since 2016 in collaboration with educational technology firm Everfi. Last year saw EA expand the campaign to 150 schools across the UK through a partnership with Digital Schoolhouse (DSH) and games industry trade body Ukie.
EA has invested heavily in its ‘Play to Learn’ STEM education initiative (Image credit: EA)
The programme included the introduction of a creative computing workshop, which was designed to help teachers guide primary school students through the basic principles of coding and computer science. The children worked with dodgeball-focused video game ‘Knockout City’, which is developed by Velan Studios as part of the EA Originals programme. All 52 primary schools in DSH’s network were able to take part in the workshop, which provided kids with both online and offline exercises.
Meanwhile, the programme helped to illustrate to secondary school students what a career in STEM could look like as they considered their next steps post-education.
Those efforts built on the work already being done as part of Play to Learn in the US and Canada, where more than 67,000 students in over 650 schools have participated in the scheme since its inception.
Using FIFA to build awareness of societal issues
In September 2021, EA jointly held the second eSoccer Aid for Unicef event, with all proceeds being donated to the United Nations’ children’s charity. Numerous soccer players, celebrities, creators and competitive gamers battled it out in a 2v2 tournament, which was shown on streaming platform Twitch.
To coincide with the event, a Soccer Aid-branded World XI FC was made available to FIFA 22 players, featuring numerous legends such as Franco Baresi, Clarence Seedorf and Ronaldinho, all of whom had previously played in the physical Soccer Aid match.
The collaboration was one of several initiatives launched by EA Sports that year to support Unicef programmes aiming to provide equal opportunities for children of all backgrounds. Unicef goodwill ambassador David Beckham was also involved in the initiative, co-designing a bespoke Fifa Ultimate Team (FUT) kit to commemorate the virtual showdown. FIFA 22 gamers were only able to unlock the kit if they tuned into the Twitch broadcast showing the tournament.
David Beckham co-designed a FUT kit to commemorate EA Sports’ eSoccer Aid for Unicef event (Image credit: EA Sports)
As well as raising awareness about equal opportunities for children, EA Sports has also worked with UK-based charity Stonewall on campaigns promoting LGBTQ+ rights. First partnering in 2010, the pair co-launched the ‘Unity Kit’ in 2020 before shifting their focus to promote the ‘Rainbow Laces’ campaign a year later.
The Rainbow Laces initiative sought to encourage both LGBTQ+ community members and allies to ‘lace up and speak up’. Rather than just wearing the colourful laces on the pitch, it urged people to also speak up in support for LGBTQ+ inclusion and help spark conversations that could facilitate positive change.
To promote the campaign, Stonewall’s Unity Kit was made available on the FUT game mode within FIFA 22 for a limited time. Players were able to unlock the kit after completing a number of challenges.
The jersey was also made available to buy from Stonewall FC’s store, with anyone who ordered the shirt within a limited period automatically entered into a competition to win a digital copy of FIFA 22.
Putting women’s soccer front and centre on FIFA
In a nod to the increasing popularity of women’s soccer, EA Sports decided to introduce women’s club soccer teams for FIFA 23, the final game of the video game series before it was rebranded as EA Sports FC.
Among the leagues to be included were the English top-flight Women’s Super League (WSL), as well as France’s Division 1 Feminine. To commemorate the greater representation of women’s players, Chelsea and Australia striker Sam Kerr was made the first female global cover star for the game.
Not long after the game’s release, EA became a global sponsor of DAZN’s coverage of the Uefa Women’s Champions League (UWCL). As well as pledging to create a women’s soccer internship programme with every female soccer competition it partners with, EA also announced the UWCL would be added into the game as part of a later update.
As well as expanding its portfolio of women’s soccer licences, the company updated its game engine to add new animations in order to mirror the movement of female players. This required years of research and technological investment to determine the specific nuances of the women’s game, which demonstrated EA’s commitment to representing the on-field product as closely as possible.
Speaking to SportsPro earlier this year, after the aforementioned women’s competitions were incorporated into the game, Andrea Hopelain, senior vice president of brand at EA Sports, said that the company was committed to “representing sport authentically in its best form and representing the entire community of those who watch, play or are interested in sport”.
“We’ve been putting our words into actions and you see that across the breadth of our EA Sports portfolio,” she added. “Not just through things like cover art but through [specific modes].
“It’s been important for us to not just represent women and women’s sport, but to do it right.”
This is the final instalment of this year’s Sport for Good Playbook 2023, a five-part series leading up to the release of the 2023 Laureus Sport for Good Index. Click here to read parts one, two, three and four.