Sustainability in film productions, reducing waste in low budget and student productions

Abstract

As the world inches closer towards the limit of 1.5 degrees warming, it is becoming increasingly important for every industry to accelerate its transition towards sustainable growth. In 2021, the Sustainable Production Alliance (SPA) released a study of the average carbon footprint of various film productions based on their budgets. This ranged from small film budgets producing 391 metric tons of carbon to large budget films producing 1081 metric tons carbon (Spangler, 2021). Carbon emissions are not the only aspect of sustainability that the film industry should focus on (Calewerts, 2022). It takes lots of equipment, resources and logistics to run a film production and after the film is completed, these resources are thrown away and turns into waste. Although there are media sustainability guides available from foreign media industries, some of the guidelines are hard to fit into Singapore’s context. Therefore, this project aims to study how low-budget and student film productions can reduce its waste and impact on the environment by implementing new sustainable practice. Most believe that implementing sustainable practices mean spending more money on environmentally-friendly products or regressing to less efficient practices. For example, getting people to bring their own bottles and refilling it seems less efficient than using disposable bottled water. This paper aims to challenge that perspective and attempt to prove that sustainable practices can raise the quality of production standards without compromising on budget and efficiency.