Taking social responsibility with a gaming room at Kvadrat shopping centre

Making a clubhouse for Einherjar eSport 

At the Kvadrat shopping centre in Sandnes, centre manager Renate Hjørnevik has made a clubhouse for gamers.

"We had an empty space in the centre and since we're one of the region's largest meeting places, we wanted to use that space to give back to the community," she explains.

So, the room was converted into an e-sports clubhouse that falls under the Einherjar eSport recreational sports club. Young people from the local community can come here and play sim racing games, PlayStation, Nintendo and Xbox. There are also board games in the clubhouse and the possibility to do homework.

"Einherjar has a number of values that line up perfectly with ours. Their goal is to get young people out of the isolation of their bedrooms and into a social community," says Hjørnevik. 

Shopping centre as a social meeting place for the entire community

The social sustainability measures in the Olav Thon Group primarily focus on creating and maintaining an inclusive and safe workplace within the group, but the e-sports room at Kvadrat shows that the efforts extend beyond the group itself.

"Here we have a great example of how we have worked successfully together with local entrepreneurs to develop a space that had been vacant for some time into something of value for both the shopping centre and local community," says Carl Nicolai Lundgreen Vold.

He is development director in the shopping centre division of the Olav Thon Group and believes that the gaming room at Kvadrat shows that there is more than one way to make a shopping centre a meeting place.

"Gamers may not always be good at physically meeting with other gamers, but I think these young people are just as interested in social meeting places as everyone else, as long as it is relevant for them," he says. 

Massive response

Lots of new members

The response to the gaming centre proves the development director's point. According to Hilde Gunn Ørland, who started and runs Einherjar eSport, the response has been "massive". In one year, over 200 young people between the ages of 10 and 18 years have joined the club.

Classroom teaching

"More and more schools also use us as a different type of classroom for teaching.

Hilde Gunn works full-time at the centre in order to develop the project further, also outside of Kvadrat.

Collaboration with the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration and municipality of Sandnes

"We've established a good partnership with both the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration and municipality of Sandnes to help promote the interests of individuals who have dropped out of society. This includes young people who want to start working and undergo job training," she says.

"It can't be measured in dollars and cents" 

Centre manager Hjørnevik is often asked whether the e-sports initiative generates money for the shopping centre.

"The value of the project can't be measured in dollars and cents. But it creates traffic with satisfied young people and parents who may not have come to the centre otherwise. It also bolsters our reputation in terms of social responsibility," says a content Hjørnevik. 

Read how Kvadrat describes its gaming room as a sustainability project.