AN OSCAR FOR THE GREENEST FILM?

RESEARCH IN FOCUS

Like any industrial sector, the film industry faces the challenge of working more sustainably. Several initiatives at home and abroad focus, among other things, on the importance of storytelling, the impact of production and choices during film distribution and screening. But what does sustainability mean on the film set? And how do you correctly map the environmental impact of this global creative sector?

Prof. Jo Van Caneghem (research group ChEMaRTs, Group T Campus) collaborated on the development of Eureca (European Environmental Calculator). This online tool measures the environmental impact of audiovisual (co)productions and is part of the Interreg project ‘Green Screen’.

Tim Wagendorp and prof. Jo Van Caneghem

© Julie Feyaerts

The ChEMaRTS team actually specialises in making waste treatment more sustainable, among other things through efficient energy and material recovery in thermal systems. Evaluation of environmental impact with life-cycle analysis (LCA) is also among the team’s core competences. The foray into the film world came about after a rather chance meeting with Tim Wagendorp, the sustainability coordinator of the Flemish Audiovisual Fund (VAF). VAF links its financial production support to sustainability, making it a European front runner. It shares its knowledge and expertise in Green Screen. This European project focuses not only on the exchange of sustainable strategies and best practices for film funds, but also on the development of a measuring instrument for the European film industry. For this, VAF is collaborating with the Spanish Promalaga and the Slovak Film Commission. Scientific input is provided by KU Leuven.

CO2 emissions

“Making a film is quite an undertaking,” Prof. Van Caneghem explains. “From pre-production through production to post-production and distribution, each time masses of people and goods that need to be transported, installed and maintained are involved. Each of these steps in the process eats up energy and raw materials and produces significant amounts of waste.”

How do you make a sustainable film? Is it a question of saving energy, cutting back on materials or reducing greenhouse gas emissions? Or do you take the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals as a guideline?

“In Eureca, the focus is on carbon dioxide,” Prof. Van Caneghem explains. “The tool measures emissions at different stages and translates variables such as transport, electricity consumption, waste, catering into comparable units. The consumption data comes from the film producers. They have a good view of the actual course of the production process and what is needed. Using special software, an impact analysis is carried out that results in a kg CO2 equivalent. That way, you can accurately calculate the impact of a film. For your information: the impact of an average European film is estimated at 192 tonnes of CO2 equivalent, although this figure hides large regional differences. This is not the end of the matter, of course. What matters is that film makers become aware of the ecological consequences of their activities so that they can already make sustainable choices when preparing their projects”.

Case study

How to get started with Eureca was demonstrated by Prof. Van Caneghem and a couple of master students in a case study. They chose ‘Buck’, a comic television series on the VRT youth channel Ketnet. “This choice was obviously not accidental,” says Prof. Van Caneghem. “In fact, in this series, there is already a lot of focus on sustainability and, in consultation with the VAF, a systematic effort is made to reduce energy, CO2 and waste. We tested scenarios in which we calculated the impact of different options. For example, what are the consequences of switching to vegetarian catering, avoiding the use of traditional generators or housing cast and crew members in a hotel near the set instead of having them commute back and forth every day? In collaboration with Prof. Johan Eyckmans of the Faculty of Economics and Business, we are currently investigating the economics of these green choices. After all, the idea is that environmentally friendly choices are not always more expensive but not seldom precisely cost-saving.” At VRT, you hear a lot of praise for the work of the Leuven researchers: this research can be seen as a cost (in €) benefit (in CO2) analysis and helps producers use time and resources efficiently.

“KU Leuven’s scientific input helps me to further refine our substantive VAF coaching and lifts Eureca’s accuracy to a higher level,” Tim Wagendorp knows. According to Prof. Van Caneghem, the willingness to produce more sustainably is definitely present in the film world. “In practice however, it is still often guessing work. From now on, using a scientifically based method, well-founded choices can be made, both ecologically and financially. That immediately provides enough arguments to convince the staff and, in the long run, the cinephile audience as well”.

Kingfisher

A first milestone has now been planted. On 10 February, at the Berlin Film Festival, the first Kingfisher was awarded, i.e. the prize for the most sustainable film production. This broke the ice. An official European Green Film label cannot be long in coming. Nor is a green Oscar.

Yves Persoons

www.interregeurope.eu/greenscreen/no-planet-no-film

www.eurecafilm.eu