Green on the big screen

Toronto’s movie industry hopes to set the bar for eco-friendly film production in Canada with its Green-Screen initiative. Announced in September, the voluntary Green-Screen program aims to endorse a set of environmentally sustainable standards and recommendations for all productions filming in Toronto.

The initiative provides guidelines on how to reduce a film’s carbon footprint at every level of production and helps producers find local green services and products.

“While production costs are always a concern to producers, there are many ways that productions can reduce their impact without adding costs,” says Toronto Film Studios president Ken Ferguson. “For instance, switching from halogen to florescent lighting in production offices, shutting off idling vehicles and switching to refillable water bottles actually saves money. All of these initiatives make a difference if we embrace them collectively.”

Other green strategies include serving food in biodegradable rather than Styrofoam containers, rental of hybrids for production use, composting of food wastes, double-sided photocopying, reduced use of the tropical hardwood lauan for set construction, planting trees to offset carbon emissions and recycling or donation of all surplus materials.

According to Melissa Morgan, a member of the environmental committee at IATSE 873, the Toronto shoot of “The Incredible Hulk,” was especially eco-conscious. “Hulk” production crews used electronic communication where possible, printed double-sided pages, rented hybrid cars, had an intensive recycling program and used pine wood in place of rainforest woods for set construction.

The DVD industry is also making efforts to green their products. The Universal release of Evan Almighty in Canada earlier this year was packaged in an eco-friendly cardboard sleeve printed in a waterless process with soy inks instead of the usual wasteful plastic box.

The paper used in the packaging was awarded a “Chain of Custody” certificate from the Forest Stewardship Council for using packaging materials deemed responsible from forest to consumer, including processing, transportation, manufacturing and distribution.

So far, the only other example of eco-friendly DVD packaging of this type seen at the consumer level was for An Inconvenient Truth. “We’ve actually been trying to develop an eco-friendly DVD package for some time, working with a variety of Canadian suppliers to try and get to a place where we were comfortable with the impact on the environment and also something that our customers would be happy with,” said Richard Bicknell, VP of marketing for Universal Studios Home Entertainment Canada.

Let’s hope more industries follow their lead.