The media industry is not the worst culprit for carbon emissions, but elements of it have not fully absorbed the immediacy of action or, indeed, how they should act. This should not detract from much good work that is already underway.
Omdia view
Summary
Film and cinema sectors are net contributors to carbon emissions, and there are many areas where things can be improved, but the sectors need to differentiate between “easy wins” and “harder fixes” and sort the simpler areas out in the very near future, while deepening our understanding of the issues and potential solutions for more deep-seated problems. According to the recent IPCC Synthesis report, “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.”
Cinema sector is getting to grips with its carbon output
Last week, the UK Cinema Association held a two-day conference solely on the topic of Sustainability and Greening the Cinema. In parallel, Cinema Technology magazine (which I write for) dedicated the latest issue to the same topic and has also made the whole magazine carbon neutral. These two things are a welcome sign that the issue of sustainability is now firmly within the mainstream of cinema industry thinking. In truth, the industry is a little later than some others to the subject, but not too late to do something about it.
I have recently worked on my first report in the field of Sustainability in Film and Cinema, which was published in December 2022. As a relative newcomer to this subject, I know I have much to learn from the many experts and professionals working in this field, but I can share my learnings and thoughts that underpin the research.
Sustainability is a cornucopia of statistics and comparative data, which is always a good start for an analyst. For example, a UK study in 2020 found that a movie budgeted at $70m+ generates an average of 2,840 tons of CO2 (the equivalent amount absorbed by 3,709 acres of forest in a year), mostly attributed to travel and energy, and that movie is also responsible for significant material waste. Or that a single sound stage can be responsible for the deforestation of 4,000 hectares. Or that the average cinema projector is operational for around 6,750 hours a year. Finally, in 2010, I worked out that, at its peak, the film industry was using 1.2 million miles of celluloid a year in producing release prints to be shipped by truck to cinemas, then recovered and destroyed or recycled. This was harmful on many levels, including the use of finite elements such as silver. Moving to digital production, post-production, distribution, and exhibition was thus the first major change to becoming more environmentally friendly.
Using existing research by wearealbert and the Sustainable Producers Alliance (SPA), we are able to estimate the carbon output of feature films. In 2019, we estimate that the global production of feature films emitted 4.2 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. As for the cinema exhibition sector, French think tank The Shift Project estimates that French cinemas emitted around 1.1 million tons of CO2 in 2021. Extrapolating this out to the world using screen counts is a far-from-scientific calculation, but if we do it this would place the carbon footprint of global cinemas at around 39 million tons. To place this in context, the total global output of CO2 in 2022 was 36.6 billion tons, according to the Global Carbon Project. According to this rough estimate, cinemas, therefore, produce around 0.1% of all carbon emissions, while film production emits 0.01%.
Figure 1: Breakdown of CO2 emissions of annual feature films by type, 2019
Source: Omdia
Government action has begun
While government and supra-national organizations do have regulatory frameworks and targets in place, as the timetable slips further there will be increased pressure on them to do more, and faster. That pressure is then pushed downwards to industrial sectors, which bear the brunt of any action that needs to be taken. The media industry should preferably get together to work on a plan rather than wait for government intervention and regulation, which will be a harsher impact in the longer term.
Examples of government action in the film and cinema sectors are now being seen. The cinema authorities in France have taken matters into their own hands with the CNC Plan d’Action, which is a plan of eco-conditionality for its support measures. From April 2023, producers will be obliged to submit a carbon audit at the pre-production (provisional) and final payment stage (definitive) in order to access the state funding systems. The tools to do this are not yet finalized, but the CNC wants to develop them with producers as the plan goes along. This highlights the key challenges with carbon reduction measures: what to measure, how to measure it, when to measure it, and where to report it. The metrics to measure will vary depending on the type of production: animation, video games, or features.
Outside of government action, in the UK TV production sector, the work of wearealbert is proving ground-breaking, and the organization is leading the sector in this area, both domestically and wider, as are major companies such as Netflix and Deluxe. Trade bodies can also do their bit: in Spain, the cinema exhibitors association aims to switch the whole cinema sector to laser projection by 2025, which is significantly more efficient. This is the first scheme of this kind, and more will follow.
My four major learnings on sustainability
My first learning on the subject is that sustainability is nothing if it cannot be measured. Sticking strictly with emissions, as opposed to pollution and waste, the measurement of carbon output is not always a straightforward matter, and the first step to fixing the problem is understanding the scale of the problem.
My second learning is that society and government need to get on with doing what they can do right now, even if the problem and the scale is not fully understood. There are some easy wins for both film production and cinema exhibition, which involve very little cost and/or effort, but do make a difference. The more complicated areas will take more time to understand and put in place appropriate and effective measures. The phrase I came up with is “Fix what you can, plan what you can’t.”
My third learning is that the key for companies to understand is how their supply and customer chain is structured, as their carbon output will be assessed not only on what they produce directly but also indirectly under Scope 3 emissions. Taking a holistic approach to carbon emissions, but also waste, pollution, and energy management will be vital.
The last learning is not to get too hung up on the Measurement side. The inability to measure the problem is not a reason to do nothing about it, whatever that action is. The real key is to begin somewhere and get the journey to Net Zero started as quickly as possible.
Appendix
Further reading
Sustainable Film and Cinema: Toward Net Zero, (December 2022)
Author
David Hancock, Chief Analyst, Media & Entertainment
