Click on RecycleBank Reward Partner ClubPogo.com and you'll find puzzles, arcade games and, even an eco-conscious vegetable growing game called "Harvest Mania." Behind this pure and simple entertainment is a company that truly believes in the idea of corporate citizenship. It outfits its avatars with electric cars for Earth Day and raises money for Haiti (together with players, it has raised more than $91,060 in donations to the American Red Cross Haitian Relief and Development Fund.) Offline, the company has banished paper cups from the workplace. Tahd Frentzel, Club Pogo™'s senior community manager, gives us a look inside a company that's more than just fun and games.
Why is the online game industry good news for the environment?A lot of stuff is being purchased digitally, which reduces a lot of waste. When I started in this business in the 90s, you'd go to a store to purchase a computer game, get a CD ROM case, a big old how-to book, and all of the packaging. But the technology moves so quickly that a game from 1991 is virtually unplayable today. So there's a lot of waste out there from those early days that we will no longer see because very few people are still buying boxed games.
Pogo players can create their own avatars and even promote socially responsible behavior with them. How does this work?We have an avatar system where you can get a player, a little man or woman, and give them a hairstyle, face, that sort of thing, and put them against a background. A few years ago our art director had some ideas about making some cool avatar items that would send a message. So the last two years on Earth Day we released a series of earth-themed items and backgrounds for your avatar, including a wind power plant, two recycling squirrels, and an electric car. There are parts of our site where avatars can interact and, around the time of Earth Day, you had a lot of people putting captions next to their minis that said, "Go green" or "Recycle."
What about your own company? How is it helping the environment?We got rid of all of our paper cups, then replaced them with ceramic cups for every single employee. The cups says things like,
Get involved. Take public transportation. Turn off lights. Now you can't find paper cups anywhere. They've gone from plastic utensils to corn-based ones that are fully recyclable and biodegradable. We recycle all of our paper towels from the bathroom.
Have you made any personal changes?Working in the digital media area, you can actually work from home and I take advantage of that. When Obama gave that speech at the DNC a year and a half ago, he talked a lot about personal responsibility. I said, ok, one thing I can do is cut down on driving to work. It's about 26 miles each way, and I have cut that down by 20 percent.
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