The newly formed alliance, Canadian Broadcasters for Sustainability, made up of 22 broadcasters, continues working to promote an increase in environmentally sustainable efforts in the audiovisual industry . “Seeing that a standard had been set, Koze Productions set itself the goal of achieving the highest possible standard of eco-responsibility, and documented its approach in a green book posted last April,” a recent Canadian Media Fund release states. “A committee was then set up and a series of promising initiatives were identified, both collective and individual.”
The group, including Bell Media, CBC/Radio-Canada, and Corus Entertainment, hopes to mirror the green sets as modeled by two production companies who did their first green shoots last year, Montreal-based creative studio Koze Productions and Halifax-based production company IoM Media. “When we started the project four years ago, we wanted to be eco-responsible, of course, but I can’t say that the idea of working on a green set came up for discussion,” said Koze Productions founder and president Vincent Chabot. “As luck would have it, we heard about Rolling Green (established by the Quebec Film and Television Council in 2021) just before we started shooting and decided to get with the program.”
Production company IoM (Island of Misfits) Media received marching orders from the CBC, in 2021, requiring its productions to measure and offset their carbon emissions. “IoM’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes team had already raised the bar on the minimum required,” the program’s sustainability manager, Elsa Tokunaga said.. “We were able to implement a number of changes based on the 5R Rule: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle.”
Modifications were made by production teams throughout the process, according to Tokunaga. The Halifax team is credited with reducing plastic consumption by introducing reusable utensils in the canteen, installing water dispensers, and encouraging the use of reusable glasses or cups on the set. It also reduced its paper footprint by printing on both sides of the page and using 100% recycled paper up from the 50% variety. Koze Productions aimed to go completely paperless. “I was inspired by Barbara Shrier. She’s been doing eco-responsible shoots for ages and doesn’t even print out scene summaries for the actors,” Vincent Chabot said. Unfortunately, the producer got a lot of blowback on this point and had to cut the target objective from 100% to 75%."
Some of the suggestions made to promote a more sustainable industry includ leasing instead of buying wardrobe, sets, and props to minimize the process of disposing was another suggestion made by the creatives. The "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" team’s go green, producer Tracey Jardine suggested facilitating access to electric vehicles and generators to kick off the efforts. “We made arrangements with major costume designers and clothing stores like Simons and Le Village des Valeurs to lease what we required,” said Chabot. “Like any good habit it takes discipline. You have to ask yourself what the renting or leasing options are. You need to think outside the box to find the solutions that will get you where you want to be.”