Variety: How big of a carbon footprint does a TV show or movie take up? It depends on a number of variables — and the differences can be significant.
On Thursday, the Sustainable Production Alliance, a consortium of film, TV and streaming companies dedicated reducing the entertainment industry’s overall environmental impact, released its inaugural carbon footprint report.
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It is surprising that I was not aware of, and probably would have not been aware of this kind of sustainable projects if I did not read this article. It is weird, especially considering how famous the member companies are. To be honest, the content of the article itself was not very efficient. I appreciate it introducing the Sustainable Production Alliance to the readers, but they did not really touched on how the alliance is trying to reduce the carbon footage, other than releasing the report on their usage. In addition, I think that simply listing the numbers with metric tons without any comparable data is not effective for the readers to grasp the seriousness of carbon usage. Regardless, I really do hope these kinds of movements could be promoted further and get popular. I am pretty sure some group could raise a fundraiser for the movies or TV series that the public wants to be made with more sustainable way.
Like Jin, I don’t think I was aware, in any capacity, of this research going on. I think, like with most things, I had a vague idea that film and TV production creates a lot of carbon emissions (and live theatre does too I’m sure, thought likely not as much). But the amounts this article listed, per hour or per episode or per shooting day… 33 metric tons per shooting day for a film? However, this article didn’t provide much context or data around this number, nor did they discuss any concrete plans to reduce this number. I feel like that's half the battle, right? Recognize there is an issue, and problem solve to improve the situation. I am glad to hear Netflix wants to be net zero emissions by 2022– lets hope they actually stick to that & really do it! Stuff like this often feels like empty promises to me, from large corporations that want the general public to like them.
I am glad to see that this research is being done, and more importantly that action will be taken because of it. The climate crisis is one of the biggest issues facing the world right now, and it is critical that larger companies start to take responsibility for it. I am glad to see that these large content creators, especially Netflix, as it is undoubtedly a leader in the industry, are making commitments to limiting carbon emissions. I think the focus on carbon emissions as a start is really wise, because it is very feasible to invest in different, cleaner energy sources. I am also glad that the Sustainable Production Alliance has made this data publicly available, and I hope it provides further incentive to Netflix and other large production companies to stay true to the commitments they have made to be more sustainable. I would be interested to see what other data the Sustainable Production Alliance has been collected, maybe in relation to material consumption, recycling, and more.
It’s nice to see someone is looking at the environmental impact of that film and TV has on the environment. Having done the green theatre project, I’m not surprised to see that airfare is one of the big four items in the breakdown – a few years ago that probably would have surprised me. I had to look up the term “tentpole” to understand why that type of movie makes an exponentially larger impact than the other film types – now knowing that these are the huge blockbuster hits that make the big bucks for studios that difference makes sense. I’d be interested to see what these numbers look like in the theatre world. You could compare Broadway to regional to touring to summer stocks to university programs. Reading that Netflix hopes to be net-zero with its carbon footprint by 2022 is reassuring, but I would want to see what the plan for that offsetting is. From the research I have seen, just purchasing offsets is a cope out and doesn’t actually make a positive environmental impact. I hope they strive to create longer timelines to reduce airfare, switching to more sustainable fuels, and less toxic materials.
While this isn’t any direct action towards sustainability, this is super encouraging to have all of the emissions documented in a report like this. Netflix even has a commitment to having net-zero carbon emissions by 2022 which is also very encouraging. Just this past week I watched as Netflix was shooting something at Mansions on Fifth and Shadyside and thinking back to that in the context of this report, it is definitely interesting to see first hand how much emissions a shoot like this creates. They have diesel vehicles up and down the side streets, probably over 50 vehicles, as well as super high wattage lights to be filming at night. So many generators are needed to power this equipment. I can only imagine how much energy is consumed daily just to shoot something like this and this is happening every day all around the world. I really hope that this report has some impact on the sustainability of the entertainment industry.
After doing the Green Theatre Project last semester and doing a lot of my own research it’s nice to look at and see other organizations / companies that are focusing on the environmental impact of the different parts of the Entertainment industry. This all being said I don’t think any of the data or information necessarily surprise me. Fuel being by far the largest carbon emitter for the projects makes perfect sense. That being said I’m a little confused about the Air travel portion like does that include the fuel needed for air travel directly or is that something else entirely, that wasn’t quite clear to me. The most interesting thing to me was really the type of show breakdown that the graph showed and how different types of productions have different proportions. For example devised work having 60+% of their emissions come from air travel makes sense while at the same time it doesn’t. In the age of the pandemic I think we have all learned how important in person interaction is but I hope we have also learned what is capable through digital means so that we don’t have to be so wasteful with air travel in the future.
I think it is great that the environmental impacts of filmed movies and television shows is beginning to be analyzed and studied. It has long been known that the production industry is incredible wasteful and has an incredibly large carbon footprint, but these actual studies and investigations are beginning to shed some light on just how large the carbon footprint of our favorite movies and television shows are. The numbers are jarring – several thousand metric tons of carbon dioxide are released for larger films, with hundreds of tons being released for smaller productions and television shows. This article does not really provide any frames of reference for just how much carbon dioxide that actually is, but it is safe to assume that several hundred or even thousand tons of it being released for s single film or tv show is ridiculously high. The article mentions that Netflix is aiming to be completely carbon neutral by the end of 2022. I believe this is an incredible first step in moving towards more eco-friendly production, but at the same time, they really limited the amount of time they have to completely change up what they are doing to cut out their carbon emissions, so it will be interesting to see if it can be accomplished. If a company the size of Netflix is able to accomplish this, however, especially on such a short time frame, I am hopeful that other production companies would follow suit.
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