There are many sustainable practices that can be adopted by the location and facilities department. This section gives advice and insight from interviews with three different specialists who are already leading changes in their field.
From your department’s perspective, how can productions become more sustainable?
Productions need to be committed to sustainability. The best way of doing that is by making it a core value, and stating this publicly and recruiting people in senior positions who understand the importance of making sustainable decisions. This sets the tone for the whole production and means crew members are more likely to buy into the solutions, and make sustainable decisions as part of their work – such as choices for locations, facilities and catering.
On a film I worked on recently, the sustainability and biodiversity lead was very clear that they wanted to push that agenda as far as they could. And it was brilliant to have that support from the top level.
In the first meeting, I said we needed the producers and those at a much higher level than me to talk about sustainability. We had conversations around trailers. We were going to a remote location, and I wanted to challenge that just because someone's contract says that they have to have a single unit driver, did all the producers need us to take 17 single trailers all the way to a remote part of the UK? Or maybe, could we not for those two days have a compromise in the name of being sympathetic to the environment?
Harriet Lawrence, Supervising Location Manager
What are your top tips for sustainability within your department?
Top tips for finding and managing locations:
- Identify where more local choices can stand in for distant locations to reduce transport emissions.
- Discuss with the production team or talent whether it’s possible to share trailers and units rather than transport separate large ones for each department.
- Select unit bases and parking areas that are as close as possible to set.
- Get educated on biodiversity so you can protect and preserve locations. We have a detrimental impact on the locations that we go to – that’s why it’s so important to take only what you need and keep your footprint as light as possible. Consider the potential damage to local biodiversity and habitats from access and structures being built, plus the potential for petrol spillage and pollution.
- On wrap, make a clean sweep of the area to ensure that nothing is left behind including equipment, rubbish and signage.
Essex Serpent was really quite significant in that we filmed in salt marshes for a very long time, beyond the sea wall. But we were supported by the producers and the director, who took the lead. We had discussions about kit - if you couldn't carry it, you didn't take it on to the marsh because it was very, very delicate.
The production team bought into the fact that if they wanted that fragile landscape on screen, they had to approach it in a much lighter way with a lighter footprint and they made some difficult decisions to make it happen.
Harriet Lawrence, Supervising Location Manager
The Essex Serpent: See-Saw Films
Top tips for energy and waste:
- Conduct power surveys to plan and monitor who needs what power across locations, caterers and facilities and how this can be shared. Often smaller generators can sufficiently cover requirements, and this reduces the amount of fuel being used/wasted.
- Opt for renewable energy sources: try to use grid power where available, mobile battery units and power generators with certified HVO fuel instead of diesel.
- Provide electric car charging on set to motivate crew to invest in electric vehicles.
- Engage a sustainable waste management company for waste and recycling, including compostables.
- Set up recycling stations so waste streams can be segregated, and easily recycled.
- Think of waste as a resource – can it be reduced, reused, resold or recycled? If not, then only then should it be disposed of.
We have worked with production and locations teams to conduct power surveys at unit base and to integrate battery stores with the unit base generator. On the Alex Rider production based in Bristol, we achieved fuel and carbon savings of 40%. We have worked alongside location managers to monitor power demand at crowd days, providing them with the data and confidence to select smaller generators and integrate battery stores on future shoots. We have recently witnessed a shift away from the use of 7kW petrol generators to 5kW battery stores for the video village. Location teams are learning how to apply the power management hierarchy and are not seeing renewable HVO as the only option to reduce emissions.
Carly McKay, Sustainability and Projects Director, Location One (location equipment and services)
Alex Rider: Eleventh Hour Films, Sony Pictures Television
We engaged with the appointed sustainability consultants (Sustainable Film) ahead of the shoot, working with them to check that compostable products were properly certified and that they could be recycled via our recycling partners. In addition to our standard waste and recycling reports, we also provided contaminant reports, allowing production to celebrate successes with the crew and provide more education and guidance where needed. The end goal, of course, was to design out residual waste altogether to achieve a truly circular practice.
Carly McKay, Sustainability and Projects Director, Location One (location equipment and services)
The Devil’s Hour: Hartswood Films, Amazon Studios
Top tips for catering choices: when booking catering, ask the caterers to:
- Provide at least one meat-free meal option every day to reduce overall meat consumption.
- Outline their strategy for food waste, for example, donating surplus food to food banks or community larders at the end of each day.
- Provide food choices based on sustainable practices, such as sourcing local and fair-trade produce.
- Put vegetarian options at the top of the menu to increase the likelihood – you’re more likely to stop reading once you’ve found something you like .
- Replace disposable crockery and cutlery with reusable items.
- Have a veg pledge for cast and crew – at the start of employment, ask them to sign up to the challenge to only eat vegetarian at work.
- Catering choices can make an enormous contribution to reducing the carbon impact of a production. See Doing Good Catering’s “Guide to Sustainable Catering for Film & TV” for more information.
Top tips for planning:
- The locations team won’t necessarily have the authority to make final decisions regarding budget, or choices on key suppliers and resources, like power. However, they can significantly influence the production by recommending sustainable options, asking questions and challenging expectations: do we need this? Can we do this differently?
- Plan sustainable choices in advance – and then stick to the plan. Be prescriptive about what people can take to set, so you're not taking endless trucks, and you're not carrying what you don't need.
- Educate the production department on the impact of schedule shifts and poor planning on carbon emissions related to locations and facilities – this could be done by itemising the CO2 impact.
- Obtain ongoing data from suppliers that shows the fruits of everyone’s efforts and reinforces sustainable behaviour.
What are the biggest challenges to working sustainably in your department, and how have you overcome them?
Once a production starts, it can be tricky to embed sustainable thinking or plans because things move so fast, and it doesn’t give us much time to find alternatives for locations or facilities. The best way is to include sustainability in initial discussions, in early engagement with suppliers and to share information.
How do you keep sustainability on the agenda?
There’s plenty that can be done, even in the middle of a production. Ask your suppliers what is possible – they often have solutions you won’t have thought of.
What resources or groups would you recommend?
Line Producers Guide to Sustainable Catering for Film & TV - a guide to help line producers understand what changes can be made to reduce catering’s carbon footprint
Biodiversity guide for productions – guide from albert to help productions reduce their impact and explore ways of becoming nature positive.
With thanks to:
Carly McKay, Sustainability and Projects Director
Emily Williams, Catering
Harriet Lawrence, Supervising Location Manager