Ubisoft 2016 Annual Report Download - page 94

Corporate social responsibility
4Environmental indicators
❙ 4.3.3 SUSTAINABLE USE OF RESOURCES
4.3.3.1 Energy consumption and use of renewable energies
Ubisoft only measures electricity as an energy source, as other energy sources are negligible compared with electricity.
In 2015, the Group measured consumption of 35,165 thousand kWh (i.e. the equivalent of 6,233 metric tons of CO
2
), broken down as follows:
Canada(1) France Romania China United States Other countries Total
metric
tons of
CO2(2)
Consumption(3) inthousands of kWh in 2015 15,278 7,070 3,282 1,755 1,407 6,369 35,165 6,233
Consumption(4) inthousands of kWh in 2014 16,180 6,286 2,677 1,603 1,472 5,716 33,934 5,744
(1) Data for the Montreal and Toronto sites (not including Quebec or Halifax)
(2) Data calculated on the basis of emission factors provided by ADEME, or by local energy suppliers where appropriate
(3) Data for 48 sites accounting for 93.7% of the Group’s workforce at the end of March2016
(4) Information for the previous year corrected and based on 41 sites accounting for 91% of the Group’s workforce at the end of March2015
A signifi cant percentage of the electricity used by the Ubisoft Group
comes from renewable energies, which helps to limit its carbon
impact. More specifi cally, the Montreal studio (for which electricity
consumption is nearly 41% of total consumption measured by
the Group) and the Quebec studio
(1)
are powered by electricity
supplied by Hydro-Québec, 99% of whose production comes from
hydroelectric dams. A total of 31 sites source more than 10% of their
electricity from renewable energy
(2)
. Therefore, over 52% of the
electricity used by the Group in 2015 was from renewable energy.
The 3.6% rise in electricity consumption at the end of 2015 as
compared with the previous year was mainly due to a combination
of the following:
♦ a signifi cant reduction in consumption, mainly at the Montreal
site, where refurbishments have been carried out;
♦
a rise in consumption due to extended premises and an increase
in workforce at some sites (particularly in Romania and France),
as well as the installation of new physical and virtual servers
to meet the needs of the growing digital and online business.
The countries with the highest consumption, such as Canada
and France, include the power consumption of energy-intensive
server rooms.
(1) The Montreal and Quebec studios accounted for 28.2% of the Group’s workforce at the end of March 2016
(2) Examples: Sweden: 100%, Romania: 54%, Germany: 38%, Spain: 27%, France: 14%
Server room consumption (inthousands of kWh) 2015 2014 Variation
Montreal 4,387 3,313 32.4%
Paris 2,610 2,260 15.5%
TOTAL 6,997 5,573 25.5%
Power consumption is closely monitored in these rooms. To cut
back on the energy consumed by servers, the Group’s largest
server rooms use “freecooling” technology. This technique consists
of using the outside air to cool the room, thereby reducing the overall
energy consumption of the infrastructures. In 2015, the Paris server
room was also fi tted with an Optimized Management Interface
(OMI by Schneider), to regulate the air conditioning system in real
time and thus optimize power consumption. These facilities must
ensure that business growth does not impact energy consumption.
At the same time, the vast majority of Group servers are virtual,
given that a virtual server consumes approximately 10 times less
electricity than a physical server with the same confi guration.
In 2015, the Group continued to invest in virtual servers in the
Paris and Montreal server rooms to keep the virtualization rate
above 80%.
In 2015, the Group continued to identify and encourage measures
to reduce overall energy consumption. These initiatives are
decentralized and vary depending on the site. Some have chosen to
limit their consumption, while others have adapted their installations
to use less power.
♦
Many sites have already introduced measures to limit or
optimize the consumption of their air conditioning and
lighting systems:
• simple day-to-day actions are also important as they avoid
wasting electricity. To this end, employees are, for example,
- Registration Document 2016
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