Ubisoft 2012 Annual Report Download - page 28

Management Report
2012
23
CONSUMPTION OF WATER
Even if Ubisoft’s water consumption is not significant, measures have been put in place to raise
employees’ awareness of their consumption.
Many subsidiaries are using low-consumption taps or taps with automatic shut-off and low-
consumption toilets, such as Italy, Germany, Sweden, Romania, the United Kingdom, Australia and
Shanghai (China). Some subsidiaries have implemented simple measures to encourage employees to
limit their water consumption; for example, in India, notices have been placed next to each water
outlet. And the Italian subsidiary has installed devices that filter and/or gasify tap water, which has
considerably reduced their purchase of bottled water.
PROCESSING AND RECYCLING UNMARKETABLE PRODUCTS
Subsidiaries are directly responsible for scrapping at distribution platforms. This is organized by
suppliers or subsidiaries’ warehouse managers.
The various destruction tasks (grinding or compacting) are carried out under the supervision of official
bodies and were outsourced to external companies for:
- Burning (in Japan, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom for whatever cannot be
recovered), or
- Burial (Italy and Switzerland), or
- Recycling (United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Australia, Canada, France, Japan, and
Romania).
For half of the subsidiaries, products are destroyed under the supervision of a government body.
The destruction of products in France is carried out by a company specializing in recycling CDs,
DVDs, computer disks and all types of plastic electronic media. The products are first ground down
and sorted before being transformed into fine particles and resold to the plastic processing sector.
LIFE-CYCLE MANAGEMENT AND RECYCLING OF COMPUTER EQUIPMENT
For more than half of Ubisoft’s studios and subsidiaries, the IT and electronic equipment is purchased
in accordance with energy-consumption standards (such as the Energy Star standard). This is the
case in Canada, Bulgaria, Spain, Germany, Australia, Chengdu (China) and Seoul (Korea).
Ubisoft takes an active part in the recycling of its used IT, electric and electronic equipment.
Except in a few countries where services of this kind are not available (notably in Morocco), the vast
majority of subsidiaries manage the disposal of their computer equipment by calling on external
service providers, specialist organizations or companies.
Depending on the case, equipment disposed of by the Group is reused by schools or charities that
may be chosen by local authorities. IT equipment that has reached the end of its life is sometimes sold
directly to employees (whereby the proceeds are given directly to charities or schools).
In France, Ubisoft has its computer equipment recycled by companies specializing in the dismantling
of such equipment and for which a recovery, disassembly and recycling contract has been signed.
These activities, involving the processing of electrical and electronic waste and the cleanup of
monitors, are carried out in compliance with the applicable laws and standards. This year, the French
subsidiaries recycled around 4 tons of computer equipment.
Foreign subsidiaries also are carefully recycling their computer equipment in collaboration with
specialist companies. For example, the National Computer Recycling Company processes IT
hardware reaching the end of its life at the Newcastle studio. It is recycled, donated or destroyed in
compliance with relevant European standards. The subsidiary in Montreal donates some of its used
equipment to a social enterprise operating in the IT sector, which runs work and job-finding programs
for young adults with difficulties. This enterprise takes on the task of recycling and reconditioning the
equipment and selling it on to welfare organizations. In Germany, recycling of PCs, batteries, printer
cartridges and electronic components is entrusted to a local company specializing in the recovery of
electric and electronic waste (Demotronic). In the financial year 2011/2012, the studio recycled 300 kg
of equipment.