Storytelling has a unique opportunity to educate, inspire and change audience behaviours as well as influence the sustainability of the entire production. This section gives advice and insight for editorial, directors or creative teams from interviews with four different professionals who are already leading changes in their field.
From your department’s perspective, how can productions become more sustainable?
Editorial decisions impact the whole production. If the story is based in a far-flung part of the world and requires huge numbers of crew and members to fly there, this will be highly carbon intensive. If the same story can be told closer to home, this will help reduce the production activities’ impact, particularly in relation to travel and energy.
What are your top tips for sustainability within your area of work?
On-screen – to make sure your content is authentic, relevant and future-proofed in the context of climate change:
- Remember that all content has impact. We have an opportunity, and responsibility, to choose what sort of impact we have, not only on individual viewers, but also on public discourse, on the communities in which we film, and through partners.
- All content set in the present day should be developed with consideration of the current climate context.
- Future-proof your drama or format by thinking about how current attitudes and values around sustainability are likely to change in the next five to 10 years. For example, electric vehicles (EVs) will increasingly be the norm rather than the exception.
- If you’re not sure where to start, bring in consultants from organisations that specialise in climate change solutions, so you can benefit from their experience and expertise, and ensure that you’re including realistic and appropriate suggestions in your content.
Tips when developing treatment:
- Avoid doom and gloom narratives – change can be the opportunity to create something better, not the end of everything.
- Consider the era, location and setting, and how climate change or sustainability might touch on these aspects.
- Where climate messaging isn’t suitable for the era or narrative, consider how else to engage the audience with supporting content. It could be as simple as a message on the end credits to share what the production did to reduce its footprint, a behind-the-scenes piece or additional content with links to further information.
- Consider how each character feels about climate change, and reflect that in the choices they make.
- Don’t ‘other’ the climate-concerned characters – the overwhelming majority of people are concerned deeply about the climate.
- Feature high-impact actions that reduce carbon emissions, focusing on the tangible changes we can make, such as different travel or energy choices, and how we can use our voice or influence to advocate for positive change.
- Show how people can engage and influence as citizens, rather than just as consumers.
- Think of ways to normalise sustainable actions, as this helps people discover what they can do themselves, for example, taking public transport or cycling rather than driving, reducing meat consumption, buying second-hand clothes, etc.
- Look for opportunities to reframe what aspiration and success looks like by showcasing low rather than high-carbon lifestyles
- Consider the way sets and props are described in scripts. Look out for fossil fuel technology and replace them with alternatives, for example, electric rather than gas hobs, trains rather than air travel, public transport or electric cars rather than petrol cars.
- Have a ‘sustainability read’ in pre-production where you go through the scripts and look for any opportunities to bring in climate themes.
Climate Spring were brought on to advise the production team about the reality of the community response to a flood, methods of flood prevention, and land management.
We worked with the lead writer, script editors and executive producers, including arranging a field trip to locations. As part of this, we showed the team the water cycle – from the upland reservoirs, through the farms, the canals and into the towns. We introduced them to individuals who had lived through previous severe floods and were taking steps to try and adapt to the changing climate and manage the land and water differently.
Josh Cockroft, Director, Climate Spring
After the Flood: Quay Street Productions
We made positive environmental changes to JoJo & Gran Gran’s animated world between seasons 1 and 2. For example:
- solar panels were installed in the street
- landfill bins were removed and more recycling bins were built into the animated set of Gran Gran’s street and home
- we showed even more travel by bus and other public transport, rather than cars
Angela Russell, Producer
JoJo & Gran Gran: BBC Studios Kids & Family; A Productions
Tips for nature and wildlife content:
- Think about the locations you want to film in, and what steps you can take to limit the impact of the production on them.
- If the documentary is trying to inspire change, think how you can support that, for example, by running a campaign alongside the documentary, having a companion episode interviewing people working on relevant volunteer projects, or by setting up a website so people can find out more information.
- Bring it ‘home’: lots of audiences feel motivated to act in support of nature, but don’t feel they know what they can do. There is an opportunity for natural history documentaries to help audiences understand that what they do in their home can improve the chances of survival for species living far away from them.
- If nature or wildlife feature heavily in your film or script, think about their portrayal and how it will impact their representation and audience interest. For example, the representation of the pangolin in the 2016 Jungle Book film focused attention on its plight as an endangered species.
Off-screen – to reduce your production impacts:
- When making decisions at the development and scripting stages, consider the impact of production, particularly in relation to travel and energy use – this makes it much easier for the crew to meet sustainability targets.
- Challenge anything you see that could be more sustainable and raise any ideas or solutions early in a production.
What are the biggest challenges to integrating sustainability into your content, and how have you overcome them?
The biggest barrier is the misconception that audiences don’t want climate content. Evidence shows audiences do want climate content, but it needs to be done in the right way - not by fear or facts but with solutions.
Another factor is not being aware of the things to look out for and the changes that can be made. Setting up dedicated training for the editorial team, or bringing in a green consultancy can educate the team about the small changes that can be made that can have a significant impact on our content and audiences.
It can be tricky to balance being true to science and environmentalism without being too dispiriting. Think about the impact you want your programmes to have. For example, is it to spotlight a certain issue, create a campaign, petition for government reform? When people feel galvanized at the end of your wildlife documentary, they need somewhere they can go to effect change. Creating a website where the audience can learn more afterwards is helpful.
BBC Wild Isles had a sister documentary, ‘Saving our Wild Isles’ that focused on projects around the UK that were taking positive action. They also had a website so people could find out how they could help.
Wild Isles: Silverback Films; BBC
Any resources or groups you’d recommend?
68 Climate Leaders changing the film and TV industry – a 2023 Forbes article listing the community of creatives leading transformation in content.
Filmmakers for future – a resource operated by a cohort of wildlife film makers based in Bristol and internationally .
Good Energy: A Playbook for Screenwriting in the age of climate change – an open-source digital guide to portraying climate change on-screen, including story inspiration, cheat sheets, character profiles, solutions and projections into the future.
Wild Film Hub - website and the platform for a podcast that features personal stories from on-location filming to behind-the-scenes production in the natural history industry. It includes stories on how individuals can champion sustainable filmmaking.
BBC Environmental Sustainability Topic Guide and Glossary – an indispensable and easily searchable guide to the science, solutions and policy challenges around climate and nature.
albert editorial tools and support– albert’s pocket storytelling guide and other resources to inform and inspire.
Some organisations that can help productions to become more sustainable include:
Heard - a charity that supports individuals and organisations with trainings and sessions on how to communicate issues of climate change in an inspiring and positive way.
With thanks to:
Angela Russell, Producer
Carina Thomas, Producer
Josh Cockcroft, Director, Climate Spring
Steve Smith, Director (Sustainability and Projects)