Ubisoft Sets New Executive Bonus Goals, Now Prioritizing Carbon Emissions

Ubisoft has outlined a new list of bonuses for CEO Yves Guillemot, and the changes include swapping out a gender diversity initiative for one centered around carbon emissions. As reported by Axios, Ubisoft's new set of bonuses does not include that same gender diversity goal as last year's set does, although that three-year goal is still in effect for Guillemot.

The long-term goal for Ubisoft was to increase the percentage of women within the company from 22% at the end of March 2020 to 24% by the end of March 2023. The goal remains as a three-year potential bonus for Guillemot but was not included in this year's set of multi-year bonuses, instead replaced by a carbon intensity goal. Ubisoft reported women make up 23.5% of its workforce as of the end of March this year, potentially putting it on track to complete its stated goal.

The new three-year carbon density goal has three main goals, in addition to smaller criteria. First, the company needs to reach 100% renewable energy; it stands at 73.5% as of 2020. Ubisoft also aims to reduce the number of business trips the company takes by 20% in addition to increasing the percentage of its games sold digitally up to 68%. For reference, 48% of Ubisoft's game sales were digital in 2019.

A statement from Ubisoft shared with GameSpot reads, "Increasing gender diversity at Ubisoft is a priority for the company. The gender diversity of Ubisoft teams is the CSR criterion defined last year for the FY23 long-term compensation incentive, which aims to accelerate our progress in this area and remains a key and strategic topic for the company moving forward. As a result of this, we made considerable progress; women represented 23.5% of the workforce in FY21. We grew the total number of employees by 13% over the past year, which means that women represented 35% of headcount growth. We will continue to work and progress in this area in the long run."

For FY22, the CSR criterion has an environmental focus to reflect an additional key transformation that is expected of an organization like Ubisoft, and has been implemented in addition to the previous gender diversity focus.

This comes a year after Ubisoft dealt with a wave of allegations of abuse and toxic work culture by some higher-ups at the company. Recently a French publication released a report accusing the company of not making meaningful changes to address the issues. Guillemot responded to the report with an open letter detailing the improvements and changes the company made.

After last year's allegations, Ubisoft added the bonus goal of improving the quality of life for its employees, with Guillemot receiving a roughly $200,000 bonus if the goal is met. The requirements for this goal involve "listening to teams, training managers and employees in 'respect at work' and assessing team members on the exemplary nature of their behavior."

Variable compensation goals are used by publicly traded companies to point executives in the direction that a company's board may want the business to move. These financial incentives are meant to bring a CEO's income closer to that of other companies if the goals are met. The goals offer additional pay in either the form of stock options or cash. Axios's Stephen Totilo noted on Twitter that Guillemot missed out on about $600,000 in bonuses last year due to the company's financial performance.