For the past year or so LCIC has been working with the film, TV and computer games industries to help reduce carbon emissions from production, distribution and exhibition. So it was particularly pleasing to be asked to present at the recent Bafta ‘Greening the Screen’ event in London.
The potential for the industry to act as a catalyst for change is enormous, but to be credible it’s particularly important that the industry practises what it preaches and reports its progress faithfully. The event involved a series of presentations, a panel debate and a trade fair so participants were able to get a sense of the current thinking from experts as well as practical hands-on advice about how to get started.
Carbon emissions are driven by many factors throughout the life of the product. At the very start of a concept, though many screen writers may operate from their own homes and thus contribute relatively modest emissions, their choice of locations can have a huge impact on subsequent travel emissions during filming. The travelling circus associated with being on-location is well known for the scale of its impacts so it was good to see many initiatives at the trade fair dedicated to helping to reduce these (e.g. http://www.greenshoot.com/). Likewise there are efforts to reduce emissions within the cinema industry and in games consoles. The comparative carbon performance of film vs. digital production methods is something that LCIC is currently investigating.
Though the film and TV industry has many issues similar to other UK industries, from a carbon management perspective it presents a particularly interesting challenge. Typically the production system brings together a wide range of companies into a special purpose vehicle (SPV) company. That company exists for the lifetime of the production and is then disbanded. Consequently, whereas many UK public and private organisations develop a carbon management system over many years, the SPV is relatively ephemeral.
The British Standards Institute has developed a modification of its voluntary sustainability standard designed for the events industry. It is based around the same methodologies as typical environmental and quality management standards. Focussing on sustainability, BS 8909 covers more than just carbon. Current thinking is that a film, TV production or game would be given a sustainability label if sufficient numbers of the companies comprising the SPV had achieved the BS8909 standard.
It is hoped that the standard will be finalised early in 2011. If you would like to find out more and/or add your own comments you can find the draft at http://drafts.bsigroup.com/Home/Details/607
Dr Simon Gerrard, Chief Technical Officer and Acting Director, LCIC
