Written by James Peak on Aug 31, 2010. Posted in Production News

It's not easy filming green

It's hard to be environmentally friendly, especially in the face of an international slump. But at least the film industry is trying. Several new initiatives, from New Zealand, Canada and the UK have gone viral and could become the basis for a much-needed global international environmental policy for the industry.

The current lack of a solid and effective international agreement governing green filming practices threatens to become one of the industry’s chief embarrassments. But over the last few years forward-thinking early-adopters around the world have pushed to make the film, TV and commercials industries more environmentally friendly and sustainable. If filmmakers with decision-making and purchasing power are interested in preserving the environment, where can they find examples of the most creative ways of filming green?

Productions like Avatar, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and ABC’s Legend of the Seeker chose New Zealand to take advantage of the astonishing natural beauty and diversity. Breathtaking environments is something New Zealand has in droves, which may explain why one of the world’s most comprehensive green filming toolkits comes from the country's Greening The Screen initiative.

This began in 2005. The website, which is now run through Film New Zealand, provides an exhaustive guide to how productions can green themselves, with the ultimate goal of zero waste. But to complement this, just last year Film New Zealand published a series of Regional Green Guides covering different areas of the country to make the advice more practically useful.

Another country with a lot invested in nature is Canada. Not surprising then that The Greencode Project, Canada’s mission to guide the national industry toward green practices, has developed into one of the closest things the global industry has to an eco-bible. After funding from the National Film Board and Greenpeace over the last couple of years, it has been fanfared at film festivals around the world in 2009 and 2010. It pushes for reduced carbon footprints, the re-use of materials and, as a last resort, carbon offsetting.

Greencode publishes a checklist of simple things all productions can do to get close to the goal of zero waste. This includes renting hybrid vehicles, providing crew with filtered water in biodegradable bottles rather than see them use bottled water, hiring locally to combat air miles and using FTP sites and USB sticks instead of paper copies and CD burning. The code has focused on very simple measures and has a lot of juice from eco-partners like Greenpeace.

Many ambitious new greening ideas are emanating from the UK. Film London has launched Green Screen, which offers practical guides to reducing energy use for location and studio filming. In addition there is a rumour that the British Film Institute is considering a new pilot scheme to formalise a British eco-quality mark, with the potential to transfer this into an international standard for green filming globally.

It may not be long before penalties for non-green filmmaking start to hit home, as an example from the UK shows. Dr Emma Gardner is a sustainability consultant at AECOM and recently wrote a seminal report for the UK Film Council on green filming. She explains that a new piece of British legislation will undoubtedly affect the way studios and large post-productions companies run their businesses:

“A big driver to reduce energy use has just passed into law in the UK. Some very big studios and post-productions houses in the UK will have to register and monitor their premises' emissions, with a costing mechanism in place per tonne of emitted C02. This initiative is not just for film and TV, but affects all big British industry.”

Last year UK research firm Havas Media polled 11,000 consumers in the United States, the UK, France, China, India, Brazil, Germany, Spain and Mexico on their attitudes toward climate change and the challenges it poses. The result was astonishing, with 80% of the world's consumers claiming they are attentive to, or absorbed by, climate change and sustainability issues.

With numbers like these, it's not surprising that many broadcasters and studios are falling over themselves to make eco-themed shows, like Nordisk Film TV World’s 100 Places to See Before They Disappear. The largest green TV initiative to date is Discovery's Planet Green channel, which launched to 50 million American homes in 2008.

Recently, productions like The Day After Tomorrow and Syriana elected to go carbon-neutral, and not just in the US. Lemon Films, of Mexico, offset their Christmas film Navidad by linking up with the biggest environmental group in Mexico, Pronatura. They helped Lemon calculate they had used 184 tons of C02 making the movie. Lemon decided to contribute with a USD10,000 donation that will go towards reforesting a remote community in the south of the country, near Oaxaca.

So what should Producers do right now? Location Managers and Producers must understand the challenge that faces any industry: people are suspicious of change. But in film and TV there are large numbers of forward-thinking, creative and questioning minds, unprepared to do things one way just because it has always been so. Producers should not forget that the transitory nature of the business can help new ideas spread incredibly quickly.

Dr Emma Gardner explains how it would be foolhardy for Producers not to see green filming as a huge win:

“It’s not just about duty, it’s opportunity as well. The eyes of the world are always on our industry. And if we can seize the green agenda and put it in the hands of creative people there is a chance we can get the world to make a sustained behavioural change across the globe.”

In the world of film and TV it is easy to see how green ideas are catching on, but with commercial production there is less evidence that Location Managers and Producers are taking green issues seriously. Whatever products they are working on, 21st century Producers should understand their own unique position to pass on geo-friendly ideas in the next production they work on. Equally Producers can listen out for new forms of eco-friendly best practice and implement them. In this way, they can help the whole industry become a world leader in sustainability and environmental change.

Images courtesy of Postal, Film New Zealand & the British Columbia Film Commission.