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Emerging Producer's Guide
Measuring What Matters
Understanding the basics of how emissions are measured will demystify the process of carbon footprints.
What is a carbon footprint?
A carbon footprint represents the total greenhouse gases that were emitted as part of the production and content creation process. Go here to learn more about how emissions are calculated.
A footprint is an essential tool for any filmmaker who plans to make more than one production in their career. It connects the choices made on a production with the real consequence of carbon pollution.
The benefit of measuring your carbon footprint is in helping you understand what activities emitted the most pollution and how future choices would lead to better results for the planet.
How to Measure your Footprint:
Thankfully, the film industry has a lot of choices for filmmakers who want free and easy -to-use tools to calculate their carbon emissions. In Canada, Reel Green offers a free carbon calculator workshop, and Ontario Green Screen offers free Carbon Calculation Fundamentals Training.
Two of the more popular calculators in North America are listed here, but there are many available around the world.
A footprint is an essential tool for any filmmaker who plans to make more than one production in their career. It connects the choices made on a production with the real consequence of carbon pollution.
The benefit of measuring your carbon footprint is in helping you understand what activities emitted the most pollution and how future choices would lead to better results for the planet.
How to Measure your Footprint:
Thankfully, the film industry has a lot of choices for filmmakers who want free and easy -to-use tools to calculate their carbon emissions. In Canada, Reel Green offers a free carbon calculator workshop, and Ontario Green Screen offers free Carbon Calculation Fundamentals Training.
Two of the more popular calculators in North America are listed here, but there are many available around the world.
- The Sustainable Entertainment Alliance production toolkit contains a great checklist of best practices (“PEACH”) and an easy-to-use carbon calculator (PEAR).
- The UK's BAFTA albert toolkit which includes a carbon action plan that can be done prior to principal photography and includes a way to estimate your carbon footprint in advance, which can be a great planning tool.
- The DGC offers a Materials Carbon Calculator and a Power (Fuel) Budgeting Tool that is free to use.
If these tools are too complex for your needs, you can track things on your own or adapt the tools to meet your project needs. Reach out to info@producingfortheplanet.com if you want help!
Quick Tip: Your carbon data is usually tied to your expenses and will show up in production documents, vendor invoices and fuel receipts (i.e.: litres of fuel, nights in hotels, number of meals purchased, etc). Take note of where your data will show up in your cost-tracking process and make a plan to identify what you need to track for your carbon footprint so that it's easier to find later on. This will make the carbon footprint process much easier!
If you're new to carbon calculators, consider taking one of the free carbon calculator training courses from Reel Green and Ontario Green Screen (see the Further Reading list below).
Wrap Reports
Reporting on your sustainability outcomes (both good and bad) can build trust and help to create and maintain a culture of organizational memory and learning. Sharing what worked and what didn’t with your teams and other interested parties helps carry forward the mindset and sustainability learnings to new productions.
Reporting can take any form, but remember the core principles of good climate communication when talking about your results:
Reporting can take any form, but remember the core principles of good climate communication when talking about your results:
- Transparency: Be transparent about what you did and didn’t do. Don’t omit items that you didn’t follow through on - rather - examine them and provide explanations about why something couldn’t be done.
- Clarity: Don’t be vague. Report what you know, as clearly as possible. Have someone else read it to confirm it makes sense to an outside person.
- Commitment: Use this as a learning tool for your next production. Highlight what you learned and commit to what you can improve in future.
You can also follow Producing for the Planet’s Green Wrap Report template as a guide.
Further reading
Together, we can build a resilient motion picture industry and move the world towards a more sustainable future.
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Producing for the Planet is headquartered in British Columbia, Canada and we acknowledge that we operate on the unceded, traditional and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh(Tsleil-Waututh), q̓ʷɑ:n̓ƛ̓ən̓ (Kwantlen), q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie), Máthxwi (Matsqui), and se'mya'me (Semiahmoo) Nations.
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