Is the film industry really sustainable?

With the Glasgow UN Climate Change Conference a few months behind us and dangers for our planet clearer than ever before, it is inevitable for our focus to be on the impact of our industries on the environment. The film industry is not an exception – in fact, the Sustainable Production Alliance, ‘a consortium of the world’s leading film, television and streaming companies dedicated to advancing sustainability initiatives’, encouraged collective action by the governments during the conference.

In the past the film industry’s harmful impact on the environment has often been overlooked or outright ignored; major Hollywood productions even went as far as actively damaging the locations they were set in. However, in recent years, initiatives by leaders in the industry such as Disney, NBC Universal and Netflix have started spreading awareness around the issue and improving the sustainability of their productions.

But are these steps in the right direction enough to counter the harm that’s being done?

The environmental impact of the film industry

When the lights go down and the opening credits roll, it’s easy to get lost in the moment and forget that a film, especially a Hollywood production, starts months before it finally opens in cinemas. The cost of a blockbuster the likes of Avengers Endgame, for instance, was around $400 million and filming took six months. Imagine how many people had to be moved, how many sets built, how much energy used.

A 2020 study by Albert Initiative, BFI and Arup, the Screen New Deal report, outlines the carbon footprint of a major production very clearly. As you can see in the image below, the data gathered shows that a tentpole film generates around 2840 tonnes of CO2e with air travel, accommodation, energy consumption and fuel as the biggest impact areas. To make sense of this figure, the report explains that ‘one production’s air travel equates to 11 one-way trips from the Earth to the moon’ and that ‘a film’s total energy consumption could power Times Square for 5 days’.

Before the film industry became aware of its impact – or better, started to care about it, a few productions even caused active damage. In an article by the Guardian, classics such as Ben Hur (1959) and Apocalypse Now (1978) are singled out as two of the most ‘eco-disastrous’ films ever made. One of the sets for Ben Hur employed forty thousand cubic feet of lumber and was then completely demolished once filming was over, while Apocalypse Now’s helicopter fires were not achieved through special effects, among other things.

As TV productions grow in quality and scale, they have started to contribute to the film industry’s impact as much as films. A 2021 report by the Sustainable Production Alliance finally disclosed data about the average impact of high-end TV series, estimating that one-hour scripted dramas had 77 metric tons of CO2 emissions per episode. Similarly to what highlighted in the Screen New Deal report, fuel used in vehicles and generators was identified as the main contributor.

How the industry is going green

What also emerges from these reports, however, is the willingness of the industry to acknowledge its environmental impact and finally address it. Together with data about carbon emissions, each of the studies mentioned above presents a plan to reduce it or eliminate it completely.

The Screen New Deal report, for example, highlights five key areas of opportunity for transformation, including the use of recyclable production materials, green energy and public transport options. In addition, the study provided the basis for the Screen New Deal: Transformation Plan, a collaboration with Creative Wales, Ffilm Cymru Wales and Clwstwr to conduct data collection to find areas of improvement in order to decarbonise TV and film production. The 2021 report by the Sustainable Production Alliance, on the other hand, will be repeated every two years to monitor and regulate emissions.

It’s not all talk. Many initiatives, some going back years, have already been implemented and have achieved great results.

In the UK, what started as a carbon calculator tool, albert, has now evolved into the BAFTA Albert Consortium, consisting of 13 of the largest UK broadcasters and production companies, which aims to encourage sustainability practices across the industry. The BFI, one of the biggest advocates, has also developed a green strategy to reduce waste and energy consumption, and to increase its dependence on renewable energy.

Globally, the efforts are even more impressive. The Sustainable Production Alliance mentioned above includes Amazon Studios, Amblin Partners, Disney, Fox Corporation, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Participant Media, Sony Pictures Entertainment, ViacomCBS and WarnerMedia. In 2010, the consortium created the Green Production Guide, ‘the premier industry online toolkit designed to reduce the film, television, and streaming industry’s carbon footprint and environmental impact’. On their website, production companies can find invaluable tools to calculate their carbon footprint and develop a plan to reduce it, as well as a database of vendors that provide sustainable goods and services.

Individually, studios have also implemented their own practices and spread awareness. NBCUniversal is one of them, with their goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2035, and their focus on saucing renewable and clean energy, improving energy efficiency and measuring and reporting their emissions. Their sustainable production infographics, seen below, were created by NBCUniversal for filmmakers to use as a guide.

The efforts made by the film industry have resulted in impressively virtuous case studies. Some of them are highlighted by Screen International’s sister site KFTV in their Sustainability Report, where sustainability consultants involved Netflix’s The Crown, Universal’s Jurassic World: Dominion and 20th Century Studios’ The Woman In the Window shed light on the practices employed. An even bigger achievement was Sam Mendes’ 1917, the first large scale UK film to gain albert certification, meaning they completed a Carbon Action Plan by offsetting all their emissions.

A huge factor in speeding up the transformation of the film industry was the Covid pandemic, which forced studios to resort to their resourcefulness in order to overcome obstacles such as closed borders and sets. The solutions they found, however, often showed sustainable alternatives to current practices and might therefore be kept in the future.

Does it mean the film industry is sustainable?

Yes, it does. Despite how harmful the industry has been in the past, new initiatives and practices are proof that with careful planning and sensible sourcing of materials and energy, film productions can massively reduce their carbon footprint. With Netflix announcing their goal of achieving net zero greenhouse emissions by the end of 2022 and other companies following suit, it looks like a sustainable future for the film industry is closer than ever before.