Ever on a journey to broaden my knowledge about all things ethical and sustainable and learn ways to make my life and work ever cleaner, in July I attended a carbon literacy course – specifically designed for the film and TV industries.
Run by Albert, a collaborative project backed by BAFTA (The British Academy of Film and Television Arts) that provides the film and TV industries with the necessary expertise and opportunities to take action on environmental sustainability.
The carbon footprint of film and television production is ENORMOUS! In 2014, the UK produced 30,000 hours of original TV content, to put that in footprint terms:
The carbon footprint of producing one hour of TV averages 12.9 tonnes of carbon dioxide, a figure that includes Co2 generated by studio power, travel, hotel accommodation and catering.
For every tonne of Co2 that we put up into the atmosphere we lose 3 cubic metres of Arctic sea ice… Aaron Matthews – project manager at Albert
The Albert Carbon Literacy course is a national training scheme designed to for individuals and production companies in the film and TV industries. Through a series of exercises, discussions, films and presentations Albert provide participants with the skills and tools to mount a non-political, optimistic, science-based response to climate change.
The course included:
- a detailed introduction to climate change and its personal and professional implications
- an opportunity to explore the environmental impact of professional and personal activity
- a summary of the roles of government, businesses and communities
- examples of good practice, tools and practical solutions to support positive action
- the skills to appraise performance and the inspiration to take further action
Whilst I myself am a very small cog in the machine that is film and television production, I am passionate (and have been for a while) about making my make-up department as sustainable and low carbon as physically possible. It may seem like a small achievement but by undertaking this course I feel I am more aware of the issues which effect our industry which in turn will help with running a make-up department which is as clean and green as possible.
Are you aware of the scale of your carbon footprint?
There are a few websites which can help you calculate your footprint (FYI – my own was 95%) however for the purposes of this course we used the WWF calculator.
Why not give it a go?
Images: (1) LJS – OMUA (2) Albert
.png){kind=icon}
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)