By Joanna Gallardo
More and more documentary films talk about environmental themes, showing the best practices in term of sustainability. But what about the environmental impact of the audiovisual production itself? Travels for shooting, lights for the set, the waste produced by the team are also energy-consuming. A unique European initiative held by two French television channels (TF1 and France Television), the Ile-de-France Film Commission and Audiens, a pension fund specialized in culture, was set to focus on the environmental impact of the audiovisual sector. It is called Ecoprod and it aims to define the green initiatives’ best practices adapted for shooting. Starting from scratch, with the support of two funding agencies the four partners created the tools to make the professionals aware of the problem of sustainability. On its website Ecoprod proposes very practical advice for a shooting: what kind of light to use, how to recycle the set, how to manage the waste… Even an online carbon evaluator adapted to the audiovisual sector was made. Thanks to the Carbon clap a production company can calculate how much CO2 a shooting will use.
At the same time both Hollywood features and TV series such as ‘24’ show a good example by announcing their carbon impact during shooting. If Hollywood does it, the green wave will slowly arrive on European shores. Of course, a good will from the producers, the directors and the funders is necessary. How to convince a producer to stay in his own country to shoot a film to reduce the carbon impact of the travels, when some of the East European countries welcome shooting with
very competitive conditions ? The material suppliers have a key role. Today, if you are a producer with environmental awareness, it is still hard to find sustainable products adapted to this sector. In the meantime art designers like Michel Gondry think about a kind of poverty ethic, trying to find creative ways to shoot a film with very reasonable production means. This is where the green revolution in cinema could also come from…
Twitter @Ecoprod_France
Sébastien - unifrance.org 
