Learn about climate change with simulation games
With climate change recognized as one of the world’s biggest challenges, today’s leaders need a new set of skills to drive meaningful greenhouse gas emission reduction programs at their organizations. This article discusses how our simulation games provide an engaging and impactful way for learners to experience the challenges and opportunities of reducing emissions.
In Sim Institute’s climate change simulations, learners play the role of an organizational leader (of a hotel, hospital or school) with the aim of reducing annual greenhouse gas emissions over a given period of time (e.g. 5 or 7 years), while at the same time optimizing other aspects of performance. These features set Sim Institute’s games apart from others that are either wider in scope (e.g. covering all of the Sustainable Development Goals) or focus on government policy making. Climate change is now such a significant organizational challenge that it requires a dedicated effort to build skills and develop strategies at the organizational level.
Our simulations have now been used by hundreds of organizations worldwide. Feedback has shown that learners improve their understanding of climate change and become enthusiastic about the actions that they can take within their organizations to reduce emissions and combat climate change.
Learning Objectives
Each of our climate change simulations has its own setting and audience, and facilitators can adjust the experience to the needs of their learners. Despite this flexibility all simulations share common learning objectives, allowing learners to experience that:
· Making large cuts in greenhouse gas emissions is challenging for organizations, but possible.
· Reducing corporate emissions does not need to go at the expense of performance and can help to reduce costs and improve quality (i.e., there is a business case for sustainability).
· Choosing the right emission reduction strategies requires managers to think through all the consequences of their decisions and to prioritize. Not all initiatives that look ‘green’ have a significant impact on emissions.
· Emission reduction efforts benefit from the involvement of multiple stakeholders, including employees, customers, and suppliers.
· Sustainability performance measurement and analysis, including emissions accounting, are critical to achieving results.
If learners are told about these points during a seminar or class, they will probably agree with them, but they will not be driven to take meaningful action. With the simulations described below they will internalise these lessons and become enthusiastic and impactful drivers of emission reduction efforts in the workplace.
Sustainability Management Simulation: Net Zero
Target audience: University students and working professionals.
In Net Zero, learners play the role of the General Manager of a 500-room, 4-star city-centre hotel with the goal of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. As a first major step, the hotel needs to reduce its emissions by 50% over the next 7 years and at the same time manage its financial performance. Each year, learners select up to 3 initiatives from a wide-ranging and evolving list that impact the hotel's emissions and business performance. Initiatives are divided into energy, purchasing, and management categories. Feedback is provided in terms of the hotel's emissions and their underlying drivers, as well as the hotel's financial performance.
Carbon Emissions Learning Lab (CELL)
Target audience: Healthcare managers and executives.
The Carbon Emissions Learning Lab (CELL) is designed for healthcare managers and executives. Learners need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from a hospital over a 5–10 year period, while at the same time improving staff engagement, patient satisfaction, the hospital’s reputation, and cost performance. Learners can choose from a wide range of initiatives that cover the areas of leadership & governance, clinical practices, operations and supply chain. By going through the decision-making process in the simulation, hospital leaders can experiment with different carbon-reduction initiatives and assess the impact of their decisions.
CELL has been developed in partnership with the Geneva Sustainability Centre and the International Hospital Federation.
Net Zero High School
Target audience: High school students.
In Net Zero High School, students become managers of their own school. Their task is to maximize the school’s emissions reductions, while also managing student satisfaction, the school’s rating and operating costs. At the end of the game, students can take a quiz to test and demonstrate their newly acquired skills. The game can also serve as a basis for the students’ own emissions reduction plan for their school.
Common features
In all simulations, emissions are reduced through a combination of technical solutions and behavioural changes by staff, customers and suppliers. Learners can choose the location of their hotel, hospital or school, and facilitators can change key parameters in the underlying model (for example the emission factor or cost of electricity). These features allow participants to play several times and experience different scenarios or to apply lessons learned.
Each simulation is accompanied by learning resources on climate change, including relevant information throughout the simulation, videos, a glossary of terms and slides for briefing and debriefing.
With simulation games, learners become engaged problem-solvers, and in many cases using a simulation is an important step in the definition and implementation of organisational emission reduction strategies.
