How A Video Production Company Is (Probably) Saving The World by Becoming Climate Neutral Certified

Sustainable storytelling is the future of great video production. We think preserving the world’s vibrancy is our responsibility as a film company, so we’re making an effort to balance our environmental impact and “put our money where our mouth is,” by becoming Climate Neutral Certified. We also love to film in visually rich locations, so let’s show you how our video production company can offset its carbon emissions and do our part to keep the world beautiful.

Measuring Our Carbon Impact

We can’t avoid some environmental costs in our industry. Our work takes us around St. Louis, the United States, and the world over. Emissions from all of that travel contribute towards environmental instability. Until carbon-free travel alternatives are widely available, we’ll never be able to reach net-zero emissions on our own. That’s why we partnered with Climate Neutral to evaluate our greenhouse gas scope and explore alternative solutions. We volunteered our travel data, purchasing history, and studio specs for them to evaluate. After their review, they provided us with a carbon rating- or an estimated amount of greenhouse gasses that our organization produces annually. For us, that was about 95 tCO2e (total carbon emissions).

That rating includes some unexpected sources of emissions- like the manufacturing of our state-of-the-art camera equipment, hard drives, and editing computers. It also includes the pyramid of shipping boxes that pile up in our studio every week. It would normally include electricity costs for powering our building and fleet but we actually provide all of that through in-house solar panels. Instead, about 65% of our emissions were generated through air travel and diesel. So how do we counterbalance those emissions in our line of work? You trade with someone who can.

Carbon Trading

Maybe you are already familiar with the phrase ‘carbon crediting’, but if you’re not here’s a quick introduction. Greenhouse gas emissions are the most globally damaging form of pollution. We should all make an effort to reduce the creation of these hazards but completely eliminating them is impossible for most organizations. Companies that can’t reach net-zero on their own can contribute towards offsetting measures through the exchange of “carbon credits”. These credits represent financial support of ecologically-friendly initiatives in wind and solar energy production, forest conservation, water filtration, and similar abatement projects. We’re providing the means for specialists in these fields to make a larger positive impact than we ever could on our own.

Carbon and energy credits are purchased on an exchange platform and verified through Climate Neutral, the leading climate action label for small and medium-sized enterprises. Credit values are based on the amount of action required to eliminate or prevent the emission of one metric ton of greenhouse gasses. These credits are also verified by third-party organizations to ensure that the beneficiary projects are trustworthy and that the offset measure meets rigorous standards. Such organizations include the Verified Carbon Standard‍, American Carbon Registry‍, Gold Standard‍, and Climate Action Reserve. Projects verified by these organizations have shown that their actions are real, permanent, quantifiable, verifiable, and enforceable.

To help offset our specific contribution to the carbon problem we selected projects outside of our value chain to donate towards. Our production team at Once Films chose initiatives in wind energy, avoiding deforestation, and capturing landfill gasses to make up our credit investment. Through these credits, we are taking responsibility for some of the historical greenhouse gasses that cannot be reduced. We invested in these credits, with a 15% additional buffer, to ensure that we’re putting more good into the world than we are taking out.

Powered By The Sun

In addition to our carbon credits, we are reducing the production of new greenhouse gasses in our work. Like our video productions, we mind all of the details and utilize every opportunity to improve our efficiency. We are using smarter route planning to reduce unnecessary mileage in our travel. We’re minimizing our purchases and combining shipments. We’re conserving energy in the studio and most importantly- we’re powering all of our equipment through solar panels.

We wanted solar from day one. We built them into the original design of our studio renovation in 2019. Today our rooftop solar panels generate 120% of the team’s net energy needs. Every camera, battery, and computer in our ecosystem is powered by the sun. Our electric scout car is also charged on-site through our solar panel system. The remaining energy from our solar panels is sent into the electric grid to share renewable energy with the rest of St. Louis. The effort to install solar panels would not have been possible without the local support of StraightUp Solar and Ameren.

Return On Investment

We’re not trying to grandstand. If this system doesn’t work for your organization, it doesn’t work- but hear us out for a second. Climate Neutral certification isn’t a superfluous environmental donation. Nearly 300 major brands proudly display the certification in their marketing. Many of our clients are engaging in similar corporate social responsibilities. Through our Climate Neutral Certification, we’re demonstrating to our customers that our values are aligned with theirs. We can also help them achieve their own goals by partnering with a vendor that doesn’t contribute to their supply network's carbon emissions.

A lot of the efforts that we have undertaken to become more environmentally friendly also provide cost savings for our company. Our solar panels paid themselves off in twenty-two months. Now we have free energy at the studio for the remaining twenty-three year life of our solar panel system. The fuel savings on our solar-powered scout car literally pays the vehicle note every month. Lowering that overhead reduces our video production costs, which means our clients’ videos cost less. Efficiency like that is built into our brand ethos and just makes great financial sense.

What Good Will We Do Next?

Our first steps towards major carbon neutrality began with the adaptive reuse of our Midtown, St. Louis studio. We applied our filmmaking paradigm to building design, material efficiency, and solar panel layout. These considerations were all meticulously poured over throughout the project. Clearly, we’ve had some cool ideas in the queue for a while now. We installed the solar panel system on the angle of the skylights to maximize the square footage of the walkable rooftop. That leaves us with room to explore some green rooftop options and urban farming next. We see our Midtown studio location as the focal point of our social responsibility for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, we are going to maintain our Climate Neutral Certification and keep our eyes open for new efficiencies.

Conclusion

We feel pretty good about our partnership with Climate Neutral and understand that there’s an economy of scale involved in the carbon problem. With our help, the credit-based projects that we fund will move the needle in a really big way. This certification fits with our values, makes financial sense, matters to our clients, and is ultimately a reflection of our belief in being creative with a conscience. We just figured, ‘we can do something great here- why wouldn’t we?’

So now it’s your turn. Is your team working towards any environmental goals in your value chain or through carbon credit offsets? Would such goals make you more attractive to potential clients? Examine your own production process for potential synergies between cost savings and environmental impacts. Be sure to mind the details.

If you need to some more ideas on how to be creative with a conscience keep a lookout for future posts in this blog series.

Also, our friend Jane Goodall would be proud!