The Producers Guild of America has unveiled a new sustainability initiative that is aimed at helping producers make the business case for eco-friendly decisions on film and television sets.
The PGA’s new Sustainability Tool Kit, which launched on Wednesday, offers guidance on how producers can make environmentally impactful decisions in their development and production processes while staying on (or even under) budget. Created in communication with multiple labor groups, the Tool Kit offers key emissions-lowering production advice, thoughts on climate-focused storytelling and advice for how to talk to harried Hollywood types about sustainability goals.
Producer Mari-Jo Winkler (True Detective, Y: The Last Man), the PGA’s Sustainability Task Force co-chair, says the Tool Kit aims to educate all guild members on sustainable choices they can make on set.
”The PGA was like, listen, we need to do something for all the other people who are producing and don’t necessarily have protocols from a major studio,” says Winkler. “Most studios and streamers do have checklists and protocols. We felt like we needed to educate a whole other faction of the PGA and make sure that all bases were covered.”
Adds her Task Force co-chair Lydia Dean Pilcher (producer of Queen of Katwe), with the resource the PGA is attempting to support producers that are just starting sustainability efforts. “There’s a lot of lessons that have been learned” over the yeras, she says. “So how can we [communicate] these lessons to people who are just coming for this conversation for the first time?”
The production section of the Tool Kit was developed and written by PGA Sustainability Task Force member Clara George (The Magicians), while the storytelling section was penned by Pilcher alongside Abby Rabinowitz and Jessie Keyt from the initiative Global Rise: Stories for the Future.
During production, the Tool Kit calls for reducing fuel (and spending) through solutions like investing in electric vehicles, asking departments to tamp down on vehicle idling and finding alternatives to diesel generators, such as using solar-powered base camps or accessing grid power.
The Tool Kit notes that the costumes, set decoration, props and construction departments might reduce waste and help the bottom line by renting or buying materials secondhand and reusing materials when possible. Recycling and composting, the guide says, doesn’t have to be a massive hassle. With all of these suggestions, the resource offers advice for “building the business case” with stakeholders to convince them to come on board.
On the storytelling front, the Tool Kit outlines how to research stories that could benefit from climate experts, how to build worlds and characters that connect with audiences and how to reach and impact different viewers with environmentally salient stories.
A communications guide, meanwhile, offers producers advice on how to communicate their sustainability goals to writers, directors, heads of department and crews. Thinking about replacing diesel generators with a more sustainable options? Try convening a power planning meeting with production management, location, transportation and lighting departments to brainstorm ways to access the grid or use batteries on budget, the Tool Kit advises.
The Tool Kit arrives as more entertainment unions and their locals are forming sustainability committees, says Pilcher, who had just come back from speaking with IATSE Local 600 members in Atlanta when she spoke to THR.
As leaders on set, producers are in a position to leverage this interest and turn it into new norms for the industry, the PGA believes. “We were hearing from members, ‘How do you talk about it? What do you say?’” Winkler recalls. “The great thing about this toolkit is that it meets you where you are. You don’t have to be an expert.”
