Made in Canada, Made Responsibly
The choices Canadian producers make about how we make animation going forward will define this industry's environmental footprint for the next several decades. The moment to get this right is now.
Canadian animation was built on the tradition of funny, anarchic and irresistible films and content. At the National Film Board, animators like Richard Condie, Frédéric Back, Evelyn Lambart, and Alison Snowden, among many others, spent decades proving that animation could be a vehicle for important ideas, as much as entertainment. Back's The Man Who Planted Trees — the story of one man's quiet, persistent act of ecological restoration — won the Oscar for Best Animated Short in 1987 and feels more urgently relevant today than when it was made. Carolyn Leaf’s The Owl Who Married The Goose brings to life an Inuit legend, stories which often centre animals and nature to convey important environmental and social themes. These were not films made to fill airtime. They were made to say something.
That same ambition carried into the television era and grew into something remarkable. From Toronto's Nelvana creating enduring children's IP enjoyed around the world, to PAW Patrol's rescue dogs watched in over 160 countries, to Vancouver's Atomic Cartoons co-producing Molly of Denali—the first nationally distributed U.S. children's series to feature an Indigenous lead character, and a Peabody Award winner for its thoughtful storytelling. Canadian stories, voices, and perspectives have found global audiences.
This is who we are. Canadian animation is built on artistic ambition, cultural purpose, and global reach. It has long recognized that what we put on screen matters—for children and the young at heart. Animation is never just animation.
This guide starts with a simple premise: how we make animation is as important as what we put on screen.
Rendering a single animated feature can consume more than 100,000 kilowatt hours of electricity, while a high-performance workstation can use 1,500 kilowatt hours each month. As production grows and AI increases computing demands, the environmental impact of animation is growing alongside the industry.
So what now? We look to animation itself. Richard Condie’s comedy “The Big Snit” is about a couple distracted by petty squabbles, Scrabble, and sawing the table while the world comes apart at the seams outside their window.
This guide is for producers who are ready to look out the window.
