Sustainable filming in the UK

British cinema is estimated to contribute over £4 billion a year to the country’s economy. But where there’s production, there’s eco-production! In fact, the two are inextricably linked these days, and the English seem to have understood this for several years now: we’ve discovered some great nuggets! A weekly reminder: Nausicä is a project we launched to highlight best practices and innovations in the environmental transition of audiovisual productions. Over a five-month period, we’re going to meet the players who are moving the lines in France and Europe. Here are the dynamics, best practices and initiatives that impressed us during our 10 days in London.

Film commissions : the wind of change

British film commissions, both regional and national, are making a major contribution to the deployment of eco-responsibility in the industry. Green Screen Program, sustainability managers, studio eco-design, we tell you all about it!

Green Screen Program

The Green Screen Program was a program financed by the Interreg Europe fund, from 2017 to 2022, and conducted across eight European countries. Film London, the film commission that aims to promote London as a production hub, was the lead partner along with Film Paris Région. The aim was to align practices and standardize regional policies to reduce the carbon footprint of productions. As part of this program, all countries had to put in place an action plan. Film London’s action plan is based on three main points: (1) the evolution of the Green Screen Certification tool, (2) the introduction of new innovations, based on The Fuel Project, and (3) the implementation of the London Grid. We caught up with Laurence Johnson and Daniela Kirchner, both of whom work at Film London, to find out more about the program.

Green Screen Certification

Green Screen Certification is a tool launched in 2016 by Film London and consulting firm GreenShoot, which inspired the name of the program in 2017. The tool takes the form of a platform on which it is possible to target different actions that can be implemented on a project, and commit to three levels of certification. The first level, the « green » level, has been carried by no fewer than 300 productions since 2016, reducing the carbon emissions of productions using this system by around 17%. Other productions have tackled the second level, the « silver » level, such as The Crown Season 4 (Netflix), Everybody’s Talking about Jamie (Regency Enterprises, Film4, Warp Films), Quiz (Left Bank Pictures). The top level, i.e. « gold », is not yet a reality, but it’s not far off. What kind of production do you think would be up for the challenge? One of the common criteria that links these different levels is the need to employ a trained Green Screen Runner.

The Fuel Project, a project firing on all cylinders

The Fuel Project is a report launched in November 2022. As its name suggests, it looks at transport-related emissions on shoots in the London area. Did you know that, according to the report, 50% of a production’s emissions come from transporting people and equipment, as well as generators? In light of this, the report proposes practical, low-carbon solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In particular, it looks at batteries, hydrogen generators and HVO or second-generation biodiesel, a synthetic fuel compatible with diesel engines and produced from used oil, rapeseed, sunflower or animal fat, while addressing persistent challenges: biodiesel availability, transparency of the supply chain, competition with food… This analysis project is the first part of a three-stage plan: the second will be to study and map vehicle and generator rental companies in the London area, with a view to supporting their transition to fossil-free supply in the third stage, as well as raising awareness at the political level.

The Grid Project: the end of generators in the city?

Limit carbon emissions, air pollution and noise pollution within a metropolis by setting up a network of electric power terminals to which productions can plug in. This is the project being run by Film London since 2019, funded in part by Interreg Funds, Mayor of London’s Good Growth Fund, NBCUniversal and the British Film Commission. A « pilot » version already exists in Victoria Park. The aim is to reduce the use of generators in towns and cities as much as possible, and to make it easier for productions to get in and out by providing them with a network of fairground connections.

The creation of « sustainability managers » within commissions: a step forward

Today, most English commissions have sustainability managers whose main role is to put professionals in touch with each other to speed up the transition. This is the case for Film London, Screen Scotland (Scotland), Film Cymru (Wales) and Northern Ireland Screen (Ireland). We met Laurence Johnson, sustainability manager at Film London, who, as mentioned above, is committed to the Green Screen Program action plan. We also spoke to Mairi Claire Bowser, sustainability manager at Screen Scotland. Mairi is leading three key initiatives in Scotland: firstly, she refers to industry suppliers she considers « green », based on subjective criteria, and passes them on to the Albert organization, which, after a second assessment, includes some of them in its national database. Secondly, she has set up a training course for sustainability coordinators in the UK, with the help of Dörte Schneider Garcia, in response to the lack of suitable training for people destined for this role. Lastly, it tries to build bridges between productions and suppliers by organizing themed workshops where production professionals and structures from outside the film industry meet. The first workshop focused on zero waste, followed by a workshop on responsible set construction and deconstruction.

Studios: renovation and eco-design

Since the arrival of American filmmakers in the 1970s-1980s to shoot a few fairly indie auteur films in the style of Superman, Batman or Star Wars, the UK has remained an essential hub for American film shoots. Thanks to generous « film tax relief », there’s even talk in the corridors that American companies would double the number of shooting days in the country if it had the necessary infrastructure. The British Film Commission (BFC) is now working to support the development of new studios. But not just any studios. 10% of current work consists of renovating existing structures, 90% involves creating new studios designed to last.

Here are a few ingredients to keep in mind when it comes to eco-designing a studio, says Jeremy Pelzer, Senior Scenic Space Strategy Advisor at CFB:

Start with good materials. Sustainability and building materials are a major issue in the construction industry, with concrete being responsible for 7% of global CO2 emissions. To make concrete buildings that emit less CO2, various solutions exist: for example, using cement fired at low temperature, replacing clinker with slag (a by-product of the steel industry) or integrating CO2-absorbing aggregates can reduce a small part of its impact on the environment.
Diversify your energy supply: your low-carbon buildings must use the most decarbonized energy possible. To do this, start by getting rid of your diesel-powered generators. Installing an intelligent energy management system will also help you consume less, and therefore reduce your energy bill. There’s no point in supplying the maximum capacity of studios all the time if only a small proportion is consumed. Intelligent ventilation systems, such as those installed by Olivier Marchetti at Provence Studios, help to reduce air-conditioning consumption. And, let’s face it, air conditioning isn’t essential all year round in England…
Pool your resources. Create your resource structures, sets, etc. together… by innovating in common solutions, taking advantage of certain geographical proximities

If you’d like to find out more about building studios that are as eco-responsible as possible, we met Benoît Ruiz, specialist in attenuation and adaptation for audiovisual and video games, and Sébastien Giraud, who are eco-designing PICS Studios, a major studio project in the south of France. We talk about it in our article on Occitanie and in an interview dedicated to Sébastien!

The large conglomerates weigh in

In the private sector, large-scale initiatives have also been launched, leading to the introduction of widely-used carbon calculators, recognized certification and national referencing of committed service providers.

Our friend Albert

Albert is English. Albert is famous, but Albert is not a celebrity. Albert is a think tank, part of the arts charity BAFTA, with both a carbon calculator and a recognized certification. The structure was created in 2011 on the initiative of the BBC, followed by ITV, C4, Sky and others, who wanted to calculate the carbon impact of their streaming productions. Little by little, Albert has also developed for fiction productions, and broadcasters have made Albert certification mandatory for their delegated and executive productions. This is a good start, which can be taken further with the development of projects such as The Fuel Project and the London Grid. As mentioned above, Albert also offers productions a base of « green » suppliers for the British audiovisual industry.

And his buddy, AdGreen

In 2020 spending on UK pub productions is estimated at £450 million. Nobody knows what that means in carbon terms. So Jo Fenn created AdGreen, with the aim of uniting the advertising industry to reduce its carbon footprint. The structure is more or less modelled on that of Albert, and brings together companies such as Havas, Accenture, Publicis Groupe… AdGreen offers free resources, training and tools (its own carbon calculator) to enable advertisers to measure and then reduce their footprint. Ad Green also supports the sector through awareness-raising, communications, events and scientific reports. The union focuses on the « big picture » and does not give advice to individual productions. To enable the advertising industry to benefit free of charge from these resources, a voluntary tax on production expenditure paid by pioneering advertisers has been introduced.

A few British initiatives

Come on, there’s no need to keep you waiting any longer. Here are a few concrete solutions that work.

Reset Scenery, or the circular economy of scenery

Two former manufacturers of scenery materials from the carpentry and metalworking sectors were fed up with the ridiculously short lifespans of materials capable of holding up for decades. Here are a few figures: an opera house takes 8 months to build and lasts 10 years, whereas materials can last an average of 25 years. For the cinema, we’re talking about a few months of construction for a few weeks or even a few days of use. For advertising and events, it’s even 3 to 5 weeks of construction for a single day of use. Simon Cook and Matt Doolan have said stop and created Reset Scenery, a Scottish scenery recovery organization that aims to promote circular production activity, promote sustainable scenic construction techniques by offering training courses, and act as a link between different professionals. The vexing question: how to finance all this? Without public subsidies, through training and consultancy missions, the sale of materials to opera houses and productions, and a very precise, granular carbon calculator dedicated solely to construction materials, based on their life-cycle analysis (from extraction to end-of-life). The key to their value creation is to take the burden of eco-design and materials recovery off companies by creating a new supply chain. They manage to self-finance their premises and staff, but are still keen to expand and move into a larger warehouse.

CAMA Assetstore: a storage solution for sets, costumes and props

At the end of a shoot, productions are faced with two recurring difficulties that force them to throw away sets, costumes and accessories: lack of time and lack of storage space. CAMA offers a materials recovery service on location, as well as a storage service for film professionals. The company helps reduce waste and promote reuse by making containers and other storage solutions available to productions throughout the country. It also offers a reallocation service run by a trained green team. The company’s many collaborations include Netflix, Universal, Warner and MGM. The company is one hundred years old and offers a unique service, which has enabled it to secure a profitable and useful position in the British audiovisual landscape!

Green Voltage: batteries for filming

Green Voltage is a company that sells batteries for filming. They sell or rent three types of batteries: 2kW , 5kW, 20kW. Using the first battery (2kW) instead of a conventional generator, for example, reduces the direct emissions of a production by 10kg of CO2 for 8h of use (diesel vs. electric mix). In addition, the company offers new software for monitoring battery charge in real time, and is also marketing a solar panel kit for recharging batteries with renewable energy – a very practical solution in remote areas with no access to the grid! That’s all from London, now it’s on to Brussels city, then Copenhagen! We’re currently compiling a list of the players we’ve met, and we’ll be posting it on the networks soon. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, where we post videos of our encounters, but also of our adventures accross Europe!