Table-top games like ours always take a toll on the environment. From the paper we use, to the printing, the shipping and even the servers we use for the electronic content, everything leaves an impact on our environment.
We, at Enigma Fellowship, strongly believe that doing our best to help improve ecosystems, reduce waste and our carbon impact on the environment is a good idea, whether you believe in climate change or not. It contributes to a better environment for us, and all the biodiversity that shares this planet with us.
While it is not possible for us to eliminate 100% of non-recycled and non-recyclable material, we do our best to achieve this goal. In the meantime, to offset the impact of our games, in our small way, and have as small a footprint as possible, we are taking several steps. You can read about these on this page.
List of initiatives
- Plant-a-tree Initiative
- Carbon Neutral Website
- Carbon Neutral Commercial Printing
- Recycled and Environmentally Certified Paper
- Climate Neutral Shipping
- Recyclable Packaging and Materials
- Puzzle Around The World Initiative
Plant-a-tree Initiative
Every game we ship equals one planted tree!
Yes, you read that correctly. Enigma Fellowship donates towards planting one tree for every game we ship. All games shipped in the past, and even those shipped in the future, directly contribute towards this initiative. This means that each game you buy, gift or get for free, has already led to a tree being donated via one of the non-profit organizations we donate to.
We are currently donating to projects around the world via Plant For The Planet and Tree-nation. They partner with the UN and non-profits working globally.
A list of the projects we have donated to is maintained below, along with audit certificates for you to see.
| Project | Donation Date | Trees Donated | Audit |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Eden Reforestation Projects Donation towards the Kenya Lamu County project. Watch their very informative videos on Youtube. | 14 February 2021 | 502 | Certificate Image |
| The Eden Reforestation Projects Donation towards the Coastal Northwest Madagascar project. Watch their very informative videos on Youtube. | 27 March 2021 | 100 | Certificate Web Link |
| The Eden Reforestation Projects Donation towards the Coastal Northwest Madagascar project. Watch their very informative videos on Youtube. NOTE: This batch of tree plantings was a special for Earth Day. We planted 3 trees for each game shipped/purchased. | 01 May 2021 | 345 | Certificate Web Link |
| The Eden Reforestation Projects Donation towards the Coastal Northwest Madagascar project. Watch their very informative videos on Youtube. | 23 May 2021 | 151 | Certificate Web Link |
| The Eden Reforestation Projects Donation towards the Coastal Northwest Madagascar project. Watch their very informative videos on Youtube. | 26 Nov 2021 | 513 | Certificate Web Link |
Carbon Neutral Website
While we don’t realize this, even running digital services leaves an impact on on our environment. The electricity consumed, maintenance and manufacturing of infrastructure; it all contributes. By partnering with Tree-Nation, we are able to operate our website in a carbon neutral way.
Tree-Nation monitors how often our website is used, and plants trees to offset the impact.
Carbon Neutral Commercial Printing
We think planting trees is a good step, but we need to go further if we are to make the biggest possible impact while still keeping our table-top paper based format.
Commercially printed components have a large contribution towards our environmental footprint. We work with Wir-Machen-Druck or LW-FlyerDruck for our commercial printing. For every print we make, we pay an extra fee to offset the environmental impact.
They partner with ClimatePartner to offset the impact of commercially printing on paper. Contributions go towards a variety of climate protection projects that ClimatePartner is engaged in.
In some urgent cases we need to work with a faster printer and choose OvernightPrints since they are FSC certified and committed to reducing environmental impact with all their materials.
| Printing Company | Project Type | Certified By |
| Wir-Machen-Druck | – Wind energy (India) – Organic waste power (India) – Solar thermal energy (India) | ClimatePartner |
| LW-FlyerDruck | – Tree planting (Germany) – Ocean protection projects (Worldwide) – Reforestation (Uganda) – Biomass energy (India) – Clean cooking stoves (Peru) | ClimatePartner |
| Saxoprint | – Forest protection (Brazil) | ClimatePartner |
| OvernightPrints | – Dry offset printing – Short inking – Solar power (60% usage) – Reduced artificial binding agents – 100% FSC certified paper – Recyclable paper | FSC Certified |
Recycled and Environmentally Certified Paper
Paper and paper based products form the backbone of our games. Eliminating these is not quite a possibility for us, so we have spent time ensuring that as much of the paper material we use meets one of these criteria:
- Recycled paper, where possible.
- If not recycled, then use environmentally paper products so they are assured to be recyclable and have a low environmental impact across their entire lifecycle.
Thankfully, we can confirm that all paper products that you find in our games currently meet these standards. Even the printers and inks we use are Blauer Engel certified.
| Paper Type | Certification |
| dundee Nature White Kopierpapier | Blauer Engel |
| NAVIGATOR Kopierpapier | FSC Certified |
| Plano Kopierpapier | FSC Certified |
| Clairefontaine Kopierpapier | FSC Certified |
| go copy Kopierpapier | PEFC Certified |
| Double A Kopierpapier | FSC Certified |
| tecno Kopierpapier | FSC Certified |
| SIGEL Motivpapier | FSC Certified |
Climate Neutral Shipping
Besides the paper and printing, the next biggest impact that our games have on the environment is due to all the shipping that we do.
Our first step towards reducing the impact was to use envelopes instead of boxes, and commit to making our games lighter than 220 grams (7.76 oz) so that we could offer combined shipping as an option. This saves money and reduces the impact of shipping greatly.
But we also specifically chose Deutsche Post DHL group as our default shipping partner because via their GoGreen program we can ensure that we are shipping every package climate neutral.
We offer other shipping options on our website as well, but the GoGreen program by Deutsche Post is one of the best programs. We encourage you to use the Tracked Mail option to avail of this. We are also happy to state that well over 95% of our shipments have been transported completely carbon neutral.
All purchases we make that are shipped to us are done via climate neutral methods as well. We use DHL, DPD and GLS for these.
| Logistics Company | Program | All Shipments |
| Deutsche Post DHL | GoGreen | ✅ |
| UPS | Carbon Neutral Shipping | |
| DPD | Carbon Neutral Since 2012 | ✅ |
| GLS | Carbon Neutral Since 2019 | ✅ |
| Hermes | Carbon Friendly Shipping | 🟡 |
✅ – Shipments are 100% carbon neutral.
🟡 – Shipments are carbon neutral until the UK, but may not be 100% neutral within the UK.
Recyclable Packaging and Materials
Packaging material used in table-top games can quickly contribute towards a lot of waste. For the moment, we make a conscious effort to ensure that all packaging material we use is recyclable, along with the other materials in the game (if they are paper or plastic based).
A few examples:
- The plastic packaging we use to protect the game envelopes from the elements are food grade. This means that you can wash the bags and use them to store food in your fridge. This greatly reduces impact on the environment.
- We are currently investigating water-proof packaging materials that are compostable. As soon as we find a suitable one, we will switch to shipping our games in these so that the impact is even lower.
- All envelopes used in the game are paper based so you can pop them into your regular recycling easily.
Puzzle Around The World Initiative
Shipping the games all around the world and producing them on paper elements, or otherwise, is taxing business for the environment. Even with advanced recycling it is almost impossible to negate the impact that games leave on our planet.
“Reduce, reuse, recycle” is an important one, and to encourage our players to reuse the games we have launched the Puzzle Around The World Initiative. We are actively encouraging our players to pass the game to as many people as possible.
We even offer discount coupons to a chain of people once at least 5 people have played the same copy.