Do we have to pay a high environmental price to feed our love of music and movies? DAVIN O'DWYERreports on the tricky trade-offs being made between the entertainment industry and the planet
LIGHTS, camera, action - a catchphrase that has long captured the magic of film-making, evoking the technical wizardry that brings cinema to life. But increasingly, it also points to cinema's under-discussed environmental problem - all those lights are usually tungsten incandescent lights, those cameras often contain vast amounts of film requiring harmful chemicals to process, and all that action, especially of the explosive, Michael Bay-variety, doesn't come without emitting a few tonnes of greenhouse gasses. In short, for all its loudly proclaimed liberal idealism and environmental awareness, Hollywood has a carbon footprint problem - a sizeable feature film production will have a footprint of King Kong proportions, emitting about 450 tonnes of CO2 and up to 10,000 tonnes of construction waste for features with particularly large sets. And that's before you consider the director and stars jetting around the world for press-the-flesh publicity, or all those prints that get produced for what are ever shorter release periods.
And it's not just the film and TV industry - while blockbusters such as Transformers 2, say, almost make a point of appearing as destructive as possible, the world of music has its own equivalent in those gargantuan stadium tours and seemingly bucolic music festivals. And then there's CD packaging, particularly the exasperating plastic jewel case, which accounts for one-third of the recording and publishing sector's greenhouse gas emissions in the UK.
In advance of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December, it's worth reminding ourselves that all industries have an environmental impact, not just those obviously polluting sectors such as mining or oil extraction, and that all industries have an obligation to minimise their carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions. But when an industry displays enough hubris to put on an event such as Live Earth, or shower a documentary such as An Inconvenient Truthwith such acclaim, then those industries have an even more acute obligation not just to implement high standards of environmental responsibility, but to be seen to leading the way. Inevitably, there are numerous people and organisations currently at work who are doing just that.
The New Zealand film industry, in particular, is pioneering sustainable, environmentally sound filming practices, with Film New Zealand going to great lengths to ensure that all aspects of the film-making process adhere to environmental best practice, going so far as to suggest that characters be seen to drive hybrid cars and recycle waste.
A similar project by Film London revealed that London's total screen industry emissions are estimated to be in the region of 125,000 tonnes a year, equivalent to the emissions produced by about 24,000 London homes. Meanwhile in Toronto, the large number of Canadian and indeed Hollywood productions has prompted the local film-related community to band together to form Green Screen Toronto, an association that provides a framework for encouraging and facilitating cleaner film-making.
Candida Paltiel, the chair of Green Screen Toronto and head of Planet in Focus, an environmental film and video festival, and Ed McNamara, Green Screen's resource director, describe the challenges the group faces in helping the industry alter their habits.
"Green Screen covers a broad cross-section of associations, and a confluence of forces brought us together," says Paltiel. "Each of us was working individually on trying to deal with sustainability and what that meant for the industry. I realised in essence we were a cluster, we could join forces and find some ways to start tackling issues together. Because if we didn't find some way of putting up a unified front it wouldn't work."
"We have an opportunity to be an agent of change for the industry," says McNamara. "Here, it's pretty decentralised, so having an organisation that can take charge of some of this lobbying is crucial. Instead of admonishing those who do poorly, we can be an organisation to offer leadership from within."
But while the film business in Ontario is sizeable enough to warrant an initiative such as Green Screen, the Irish industry is a much smaller operation. Still, there are efforts to keep the industry as green as possible. Tom Conroy, production designer on The Tudors, as well as on films such as East is East, Intermissionand Breakfast on Pluto, has long been aware of how wasteful his industry has been.
"On The Tudors, we made sure all the timber we were sourcing came from sustainable forests, as a point of first principle. We have some standing sets here in Ardmore for The Tudors, but nearly all the timber we use is recycled by a company in Wicklow. In the old days it used to be skipped. We also recycle within ourselves, so we've designed the sets on a modular system, and each part can interlink with another part - kind of like a sophisticated, large-scale Lego. This works with episodic TV production, because we can let sets stand from year to year."
As for turning Ireland into a green-film production centre, Conroy is realistic.
"We are an absolutely tiny, tiny segment of the film-making scene. In reality, we have to plug into other infrastructures that are in place, such as the construction industry. For instance, the woodchip recyclers exist for the construction industry, rather than merely for the film production industry. In the UK, for instance, there's a scenery recycling company, which takes scenery sets away and puts them to use on other productions. We just don't have the scale to do that here."
When it comes to scale, however, Ireland does exceed in at least one area - we've got the biggest band on the planet, and they put on the biggest, most expensive stadium tour ever. According to carbonfootprint.com, the total emissions from U2's 360 tour will be in the region of 65,000 tonnes of CO2 - who even knew a gas could weigh that much?
And the competition between these stadium-tour behemoths is palpable. The previous biggest stage belonged to The Rolling Stones's Bigger Bang tour, which certainly did what it said on the tin - their gig at Slane in 2008 concluded with a fireworks display that put many Fourth of July celebrations to shame. Jagger and co claimed that they invested in carbon offsetting to make up for their colossal folly, and the Edge said the same thing about U2's latest extravaganza: "I think it's probably unfair to single out rock'n'roll. There's many other things that are in the same category but as it happens we have a programme to offset whatever carbon footprint we have," the Edge told the BBC in August.
However, carbon offsetting, it is increasingly agreed, is the environmental equivalent of buying indulgences from the Church, a get-out-of-jail free card that magically promises to exonerate polluters from the real cost of their lifestyle. On top of its debatable efficacy, offsetting usually ignores the fact that a huge proportion of a given tour or festival's emissions result from the fans travelling to the venue, rather than the production itself.
Alison Tickell, the founder and director of Julie's Bicycle, a London-based coalition of industry, science and energy experts who are working on reducing the music industry's level of emissions, points out that "43 per cent of the music industry's impact is down to audience travel to the concerts". The comprehensive research conducted by the Oxford Environmental Change Institute on behalf of Julie's Bicycle suggests that people travelling to gigs in the UK generate at least 400,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every year. By engaging with senior people in the industry, from labels to festival organisers, Tickell hopes to develop practical campaigns to make a difference.
"Looking at CD packaging's impact, that's within our area of control, in that the labels can agree to transition to card cases, whereas fans' travel is quite a challenge to address. The formation of Julie's Bicycle did coincide with Live Earth, and the sense that this was not the only way to work on these issues. Our approach has been quiet and behind the scenes, and we just get on with on it. But it's important to understand how the industry works, because there's no point in coming up with recommendations that are unworkable."
Few acts have been more prominent in this cause than Radiohead. Their acclaimed tour in support of In Rainbowsbroke new ground in establishing sustainable, environmentally friendly practices - the all-LED lighting rigs resulted in a 75 per cent reduction in power requirements over their 2003 tour, while shipping their equipment rather than flying it reducing their transport-related CO2 emissions by 97 per cent.
Festivals such as Oxegen, Electric Picnic and Glastonbury have large footprints too.
"The greenest thing to do is not to run the event," Glasto's Michael Eavis said last year. "But if we want something like Glastonbury, if it's part of our culture, that's the price one has to pay... We've always minimised the damage. But if you switched off everything that created carbon, we'd be bored to tears."
Of course Eavis has a point. The music biz and above all the movie industry might be surprisingly heavy polluters, but unlike, say, CFCs, they can't just be phased out. The reality is they will have to adopt greener practices, whether from the efforts of industry activists, or due to the legislation that will inevitably come to proscribe greenhouse gas emissions. Or perhaps, as we become increasingly aware of the environmental impact of all our activities, from owning a pet to running a Google search, the pressure on the music and movie industries to offer us clean, green entertainment will come from us.
The entertainment industry's greener future
MUSIC
IN STUDIO:The electricity used by studios in the UK produces approximately 10,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year, and we can all agree that's producing a lot of mediocre music, too. Solar-powered studios and digital recording technology will help reduce the emissions, but the mediocre music is another problem altogether.
CD PACKAGING:There's the physical CD, the jewel case, the booklet which rarely ever gets read, the cellophane wrapper, the highly adhesive store-attached RFID sticker - all in all, CD packaging results in a fair degree of waste. That is not to even consider the amount of excess stock that gets produced every year, as all those unloved and unlovable albums get first remaindered and ultimately dumped in landfill.
DIGITAL DOWNLOADS:Apple is already the largest music retailer in the US, and is the most powerful by most estimates, so the online future of music is already here. But if, as alleged, doing a Google search is the equivalent of boiling a kettle (and that's a big if - calculating the carbon footprint of data servers is a messy business), then digital downloads could be the equivalent of turning on, say, the dishwasher. Probably not, but expect to hear that 99 cent single compared to some kitchen appliance in the next two to three years.
GIGS AND FESTIVALS:Cycle, walk, run or crawl to that show, but do not, whatever else happens, travel by car, especially on your own. Up to 43 per cent of the UK music industry's greenhouse gas emissions are a result of fans travelling to gigs, so discouraging people from driving to shows is a major challenge for the industry.
For festivals it's even worse - they are a pretty unsustainable event in any case, but calculations by Julie's Bicycle found that audience travel results in two-thirds of the festival sector's emissions. The best way to get to the countryside for a weekend of festival fun? Travelling on a full bus.
MOVIES
ON SET:As Tom Conroy explains, set construction accounts for a huge proportion of the potential waste on a film set, so it's important to adhere to the best practice guidelines of recycling and reusing set elements, sourcing sustainable timber, and leaving location shoots in as good a condition as they were found.
Also, simply by replacing tungsten lights with high efficiency Compact Fluorescent Lighting (CFL), productions can reduce power demand by about 60 per cent, and also reduce their need for cooling systems.
Digital filming is still in its relatively embryonic stages, but as cameras such as the Red One continue to revolutionise cinematography, the reliance on film, and the waste and chemicals that go along with it, will be phased out.
POST-PRODUCTION:The rise of digital editing can result in a cleaner post-production process, but conversely data centres to store all that digital video now account for half of the emissions of post-production. The efficiency of data centres is increasing all the time, but big, processor-intensive servers demand a surprising amount of energy. Moore's Law should see a relatively steady improvement in this regard, however.
DISTRIBUTION:Digital projection will be disrupting the traditional projection system in the coming years, with films essentially streamed to cinemas on high-bandwidth network connections. This means no more wasteful prints being made up, but it will also make Cinema Paradisoeven more powerfully nostalgic than it already is.
FILM STARS:Ah, the talent - more than likely the last aspect of film-making to be greened. Bob Zemeckis might by trying his hardest to digitally replace the acting class, but odds are we're going to be stuck with pampered film stars jetting around the world for a few generations yet.
