thisisFINLAND: The carbon footprint of the film was calculated based on the numerous products, services and activities necessary to make it, including transportation, food and electricity. To monitor and report their carbon footprints, all crewmembers read Ekosetti, a sustainable-production guidebook that Aalto University created for the Finnish audiovisual industry.
“It was fun and interesting because it brought the team together,” says Gould. “Once you work with offsetting your emissions, there’s no way back.
4 comments:
I was very inspired by this p! This is the first movie to be completely carbon neutral and the whole crew was also very committed and conscious with their carbon-neutral choices. Finland has a handbook that helps production know to be carbon neutral. They used up cycled clothes, didn’t serve meat fo the crew, and make good transportation decisions. They paid an emissions offset company to basically offset their footprint which only came to about 700 euros. I didn’t know that that was a thing but that is so cool. We can incentivize companies to reduce their carbon emissions by making them pay these companies to offset their carbon emissions. Im very happy to see that companies are setting goals to be carbon neutral and even carbon negative by a certain time.
I think often people overlook how wasteful the film and theater industry is. So many things are thrown away or not created in a sustainable way. As someone who is Finnish the way of life, there is very conducive to an environmentally conscious way of living. Life generally moves at a slower pace and there is an emphasis placed on the importance of nature. I think this is why they were able to create this carbon-neutral production. I think that the United States has a long way to go to achieve goals like this especially because of the nonstop consumeristic culture that we have. I hope, however, that we take inspiration from Finland's way of life and work towards more sustainable options. The earth is our home and it is our responsibility to preserve it and enable it to thrive. The theater and film industry can help with this even starting with baby steps to help create a bigger systematic change.
It was delightful to read the article that is less related to COVID during this era (although this included the pandemic context). I think it was more interesting because the team’s goal of reducing carbon waste and heading for the offsetting goal was not only involved within the process of producing the film but also was deeply related to the context of the movie itself. Altering the food menus when filming is easy to imagine, but they took a step further by reflecting such lifestyles in the characters’ behaviors as well. The offset cost being less than 700 euros is indeed a commendable achievement, and I appreciate them shedding light on the area that could have been seen negligible especially this time of the era, when everyone is so busy just sustaining their own lives. Films like these definitely deserve more spotlight and I hope they promote their works more actively so that it could be exposed to more variety of audiences.
I believe the production of this entirely carbon-neutral film is an important first step for the rest of the industry. Film production is an incredibly wasteful and heavily carbon-positive in general. Most sets are built, used for the shoot, then discarded. Food services often produces a lot of food waste. The sheer amount of power needed for lighting, automation, special effects, and more is often fueled by mobile, gas or diesel burning generators. All of these things compound onto one another until we realize just how taxing film production is on our poor environment. Even though this Finnish film was a relatively small production compared to some of the multi-million dollar projects produced in the US and elsewhere, it was very refreshing to see that the whole cast and crew was so committed to being conscious of their carbon footprint. I see this production as somewhat of a proof of concept that and entirely carbon neutral production is an entirely reasonable endeavor, and I hope the rest of the world sees this as well, and at least makes efforts to move in a carbon neutral direction.
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