Game Overview

Student teams, each playing the role of a company emitting greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide) while producing goods and services, participate in an emissions cap-and-trade market. There are three game rounds, each round is one emissions trading or compliance period. At game start, each team is provided company-specific information such as its emissions profile as a function of production, its cost of emissions abatement as a function of abatement level, its target emissions cap, and its allocation of emissions allowances. The period’s prevailing carbon price on the trading market is given. Each team makes a decision to either buy or sell allowances based on an incentive to minimize the company’s costs in emissions abatement while ensuring that it at least meets the mandated emissions cap. At the end of the game, each team’s performance will be analyzed and ranked.