Jonny Rogers reports on how the film and television industries are impacting the environment, and how new measurements are being put in place to tell a different story
Photo by Denise Jans
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For the past 130 years, the film industry has served as a dominant platform for art, entertainment and culture around the world. Although nature and ecology have continued to be a subject of fascination for filmmakers and cinephiles since the very first moving images, active measures to assess the hidden cost of productions have only been put in force over the past couple of decades.
However, some activists and eco-critics are concerned that sustainability is still not given the urgency it demands. In London alone, the audio-visual industry produces the same amount of CO2 as a town of 20,000 people, not to mention the emissions produced by the transportation of cast, crew and equipment across the world.
Waste, Damage and Pollution
In 2013, a leaked report revealed that the filming of Mad Max: Fury Road had resulted in considerable damage to the ecosystem of Namibia’s protected Dorob National Park. Ironically, the film—which depicts a post-apocalyptic world in which petrol and water are scarce commodities—was forced to move from Australia after unexpectedly heavy rainfall (due to climate change) had washed out the original filming location.
In 2015, during the filming of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, insiders reported that, toxic substances, including oil, acetone, paint and polystyrene, had overflowed into a natural creek due to negligence. An artificial town built for the franchise’s first film was abandoned on an island in St. Vincent, where it remains to this day.
Nevertheless, environmental damage does not just occur off camera. For the iconic opening to 1979’s Apocalypse Now—featuring a palm tree forest being destroyed by Napalm in a matter of seconds—several acres of real palm trees in the Philippines were doused in 1,200 gallons of gasoline before being set alight. As director Francis Ford Coppola admitted, “They’d never let you [film this] in the US; the environmentalists would kill you.”
However, the issue is not contained to those productions whose damage is more evident. As Esmeralda Ruiz, the head of sustainability at Fresco Film, observes:
“The audio-visual industry is very consumeristic. It needs a huge quantity of resources, which are not unlimited, and it uses them for just a very short time. If it is necessary to build a set, you use a lot of wood and a few days later it is no longer of any use, and often it has to be destroyed. You buy costumes, and then you throw them away. It is totally unsustainable.”
The perpetual generation of new content seems to render on-set waste and pollution almost unavoidable—but only almost.
The Productions Telling a Different Story
Over the past few years, due to the hidden costs being more understood a number of independent companies and larger studio initiatives have been established to make some changes in the way films are made.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 brought attention to its eco-conscious practices in its marketing, declaring itself “the most eco-friendly blockbuster in the history of the studio.” Under the guidance of an ‘eco manager’, the production’s measures included renting and reusing sets; using water-based smoke for special effects; banning plastic bottles during production, and supporting global sustainability projects. This enabled the film to become entirely carbon neutral.
A key figure behind many of these changes was Emellie O’Brien, who co-founded the Brooklyn-based consulting agency Earth Angel to offer advice and support for production teams. Emellie and the agency have worked on the sets of films such as Noah, Okja, Black Panther, and Avengers: Infinity War. Since 2013, they have reportedly diverted 4,800 tons of production waste from landfills; avoided the use of 2.3 million single-use plastic bottles, and perhaps most surprisingly, have helped productions save over $1.2 million in the process.
In 2017, the European Union launched a €2.2 million project to support sustainable production across Europe, working with companies such as Film London and Promálga in Spain. The creation of new grants and systems of promotion for green productions have resulted in studios approaching these ecological consultants with their own sustainability criteria, with some production companies even implementing new environmental departments.
Perhaps most significant, however, is the cultural influence held by the television and film production industries:
“The entertainment industry is one of the most influential in society. When sustainability and environmental responsibility measures start to be applied, that philosophy impregnates the entire film crew, who will then apply it at home and in future shoots. They start to become more aware and that has an impact.” – Emellie O’Brien
To wrap it up
At the beginning of 2020, the Academy of Motion Picture announced that the Oscars would adopt an entirely plant-based menu, in addition to banning plastic bottles. If this offers a picture of the film industry’s future, then perhaps the environment will finally have the Hollywood ending it really deserves.
Researcher: Jonny Rogers | Editor: Kate Byng-Hall | Online Editor: Alison Poole
Revised: 2024
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