Catena Media launched it’s new review site Playandsustain.com at the end of last month, ranking igaming entities on sustainability.

The idea around the new site was to help players make an informed decision on which brands to choose based on sustainability and how they protect players and help society as a whole.

The team behind the project, deputy CEO, Johannes Bergh, technical product owner, Joe Hatch and analytics manager, Edward Zerafa went into more detail about the website and how it came to be.

The trio believe that consumers are becoming ‘more aware’ of companies behind the products they are buying/selling from and are not afraid to be ‘critical’ about the services they are using.

They said: “The data showed that consumers are actively looking for information about company’s sustainability and that they do, in fact, base their buying decision upon this information.

“What this means is that companies and brands that are not sustainable, are losing customers and losing business as a result.”

The idea of Play and Sustain came from Catena Media’s yearly internal entrepreneurship event, where employees present innovations or business ideas. 

They said that innovation is a ‘fundamental’ part of creating growth in a company. This led to the company hosting their very own ‘Dragon’s Den’ as a method of gathering ideas and incentive’s to reward employees with an innovative mindset.

Corporate social responsibility is a way for businesses to give something back to society”

“Dragon’s Den is hosted every year at the Catena Media ‘Catena Fest’.” Bergh said “Four shortlisted employees present their ideas, in front of all employees and a jury of Catena ‘Dragons’

“The idea for Playandsustain.com was presented by Edward Zerafa, our analytics manager, the project was then picked up by Joe Hatch, a product owner at Catena, and brought to life.”

After receiving €10,000 from Catena Media to fund and develop a proof of concept. Play and Sustain began to gather momentum due to it serving a ‘real need.’

Bergh continued: “This is a growing need, not only from the perspective of the player, but also from investors, employees and governments.”

The websites review system takes into consideration four categories when rating and ranking operators, namely carbon footprint, charitable causes, responsible gaming and customer service.

“We use public data and data provided by the operator’s annual reports and/or sustainability reports to address the first three categories.” They state. “As for customer service data, we collect this from our comprehensive complaints section in AskGamblers. Finally, we add an algorithm to decide the ranking.”

Bergh said in a recent interview with us regarding Play and Sustain that: “By aggregating CSR related information, consumers and other parties can make more qualified decisions on where to pay, work and invest.”

Not all businesses operate responsibly or sustainably”

According to the trio: “Corporate social responsibility is a way for businesses to give something back to society.” 

CSR is a self-regulating business model that helps a company be socially accountable to itself, its stakeholders and the public so companies can be conscious of the kind of impact they are having on all aspects of society, including economic, social and environmental.

They continued to say: “There is no doubt that the gambling industry has a negative reputation. The majority of players do not have a gambling problem, however, gambling can be addictive.”

Concluding on a perceived belief that CSR is just a way for the gaming industry to gain favour in the media: “Not all businesses operate responsibly or sustainably, but the ones who are actively engaged in CSR initiatives enjoy an advantage when it comes to brand preference, which then spills over into recruitment and investor relations.”