Measuring a Film’s Climate Impact
A carbon footprint report is an environmental audit that serves as a film production’s official scorecard for its impact on climate change. The final output is a number, measured in tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e), that represents the total greenhouse gases emitted as a result of the production. This report is essential for understanding a production’s environmental impact, setting reduction targets, and providing transparent data for a studio’s larger corporate sustainability report.
Scopes of Emissions in Production
The report is typically broken down into three internationally recognized ‘scopes’ to categorize the source of the emissions:
- Scope 1: Direct Emissions. These are emissions from sources directly owned or controlled by the production. The primary contributors are the fuel burned in on-set diesel generators and the fuel used in the fleet of production vehicles (trucks, vans, etc.).
- Scope 2: Indirect Emissions from Energy. This scope covers the emissions generated from the production’s purchase of electricity. This includes the power used for soundstages, production offices, workshops, and post-production facilities.
- Scope 3: All Other Indirect Emissions. This is often the largest and most complex category. It includes all emissions from the production’s supply chain, most notably the significant impact of air travel for cast and crew, as well as emissions from hotel stays, ground transportation, catering, and waste disposal.
To create the report, a sustainability consultant collects data from every department—from fuel receipts to flight itineraries—and uses a specialized carbon calculator, like the UK-based ‘Albert’ toolkit, to quantify the total footprint. This data provides a crucial baseline for identifying emission ‘hotspots’ and developing strategies for future reduction.