We might not have a list of songs you’ve had on repeat for the last 365 days, collected just for you to listen to yet again – but the new year is the perfect time for us to reflect on our year of activity. This year was HUGE for us, and even though we couldn’t meet all of our goals we set at the beginning of the year, we still couldn’t be happier with what we accomplished.
What we did
We aren’t boasters, and since we cover project updates regularly in our quarterly newsletter – we’ll keep this short. To start – speaking of newsletters – our new-and-improved newsletter is more lightweight than before, limiting our environmental impact in your inbox. We also started development on our environmental video game, Pinekeepers; we expanded our shop offerings to include eco-friendly digital bookmarks (for easy home printing); all while making 162 Pixel Planet Today posts! But the biggest accomplishment we made this year? WE FORMED A GREEN TECH COMPANY, TERRABYTE! We are so so so excited for where this company is headed and the projects in the works – we hope you’ll follow us on our journey to green-tech goodness. 😊
What we couldn’t
At the beginning of the year (actually, at some point last year), we set the lofty goal of creating Pixel Planet Today posts using only renewable energy. The goal made sense early on as the project was just run by me (Sammy, creator and illustrator here, hello), but as more people contributed to the project, it quickly became virtually impossible. With our core team spread across the United States and various guest posters based around the globe, it became a task even large companies have difficulty tackling. Moving into 2023, we will be looking into other courses of action we can take, but it will realistically be some time until we can confidently say “the project is powered by renewable energy.” To help with this process, we (Terrabyte) became a member of the SME Climate Hub, an initiative that helps small and medium-sized businesses become more environmentally friendly. We are really looking forward to digging into the resources they have available and figuring out how we can limit our impacts in other ways (including plastic waste, composting, and creating sustainable projects).
We are far from supporters of carbon offsets, but as some kind of planetary compensation, we funded the planting of more-than twice the number of trees that it will take to offset our estimated carbon footprint for the year. This estimation process wasn’t perfect (as you can imagine with our team being so spread out), but in donating twice our estimated amount, any discrepancies in estimation should still be negated.
Our 2023 Resolutions
So what are our goals for this coming year? While we would love to continue making lofty promises, if we’ve learned anything from COPs of the past: it’s that no one benefits from false hopes. In an era of greenwashing, there are few things as rare as realistic environmentalists. We plan to grow our team even more in 2023, meaning that our goals have to be as flexible as they are impactful. For our team and contributors based in our home city of Omaha, Nebraska, we plan to offer recycling and composting services pro-bono, and on request, find similar services for team members that live in other regions. We are also planning on expanding merch options available in our store (sustainable merch options, of course). But the most exciting goal we have is to release Pinekeepers! We are still well in the development phases so it’s too early to pick a release date – but by year’s end, we hope to have the game in your pocket. 😊❤️🌎
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