EnergyTown: Classroom game accused of 'brainwashing' UK schoolchildren into accepting fossil fuels

• EnergyTown is an online city builder game aimed at helping UK schools teach pupils about the energy system
• It is funded by energy giant Equinor, and hosts yearly school competitions
• Materials associated with the game describe renewable energy sources as “less reliable”
• Climate campaigners accuse it of targeting children with fossil fuel propaganda
• But Equinor says the game demonstrates how the green energy transition is about balance

Environment campaigners have sounded the alarm over a free online game being marketed to UK schoolchildren - which they say is designed to make them feel more positively about fossil fuels.

EnergyTown is funded by Norwegian energy giant Equinor. Aimed at children aged nine to 14, it comes with free educational resources to be used in lessons. It allows them to build and power a city that will survive until the year 2050 - while juggling factors like their ‘green score’, community happiness, and finances.

The game first launched in October 2023, and as of last year, Equinor said that it had reached more than 81,400 pupils across the UK. The game also holds a schools competition with a £1,000 cash prize, with this year’s event set to close on Friday (June 6).

But Greenpeace accuses it of being an attempt to “brainwash schoolchildren”. The game suggests that oil can be part of a green energy mix, and in an online help page - titled ‘how to improve your score in EnergyTown’ - on the game’s Equinor-funded host site, it warns young players that renewable energy is “less reliable”.

“If you’re relying on electricity from renewable energy resources like wind and solar power, you may have less electricity due to these energy resources being less reliable,” the page says. “You should invest in a more reliable way to generate electricity, such as nuclear, oil, natural gas or hydrogen.”

Equinor is also the majority owner of the controversial Rosebank oil and gas field development, 80 miles west of Shetland, which is thought to be the largest untapped oilfield in UK waters. In January this year, its consent was quashed by the Scottish Court of Session as unlawful, the BBC reports, meaning its owners must seek fresh approval from the UK Government before they begin extracting oil.

But the project has been widely protested by campaigners, who say that new oil and gas projects are not compatible with the UK’s climate commitments. “We know exactly what Equinor is playing at,” Mel Evans, the head of Greenpeace UK’s climate team, said.

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“This so-called educational game is a thinly-disguised attempt to greenwash oil and gas by targeting children with fossil fuel propaganda. The bitter irony is that while fossil fuels may help build a ‘sustainable’ energy future in the game's fictional world, they're driving more devastating floods in some of these schoolkids' communities,” she continued.

“For that reason alone, this cynical PR ploy is doomed to fail. We know many young children know a lot about the climate crisis and what's driving it. If Equinor wants to win young hearts and minds, it should get serious about ditching fossil fuels and shifting to clean energy.”

Equinor spokesperson Magnus Frantzen Eidsvold told us that the game was part of Equinor’s ordinary activities and programs “to stimulate the interest in science and technology (STEM) among young people, and not developed as part of any Rosebank campaign”.

“Equinor wants to contribute to ensuring the next generation is equipped with the skills needed to drive the energy industry and transition forward,” he continued. The game had been developed using data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), which verified the scenarios used in EnergyTown to “ensure they are realistic and representative of the UK’s current energy system”.

The game was designed to reflect this complexity and showed that the energy transition was about balance, he added, requiring a mix of sources over time. “The IEA forecast that fossil fuels may be required in 2050 especially in areas where renewables alone can't meet demand. EnergyTown is not about endorsing any one solution, rather it's about equipping the next generation with knowledge to make better decisions.”

The game was developed by marketing agency We Are Futures, and was quality-asserted for UK schoolchildren by the Association for Science Education (ASE). We have approached both organisations for comment.

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