We cherish the environment that sustains all life.
Through adhering to the principles and values held by Māori about environmental custodianship and guardianship, as a sector, we can move towards upholding the responsibilities of partnership envisioned in Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Environmental sustainability can seem like a daunting challenge, but once broken down into steps, it’s actually really achievable.
We’ve prepared for you here a guide to getting started on a production, with links to the relevant pages in Greenlit.
Increasing your knowledge around environmental sustainability can help demystify the whole process of improve practice. Greenlit has a number of resources to help you learn more.
Understanding the obligations and standards that Aotearoa (New Zealand) is committed to can inform your own objectives for your production and provide broader context to the importance of environmental sustainability on a global scale.
When production crews conduct activity on Māori land, it’s imperative to understand that the health of the people is intrinsically tied to the health of their land.
Where the land may not be occupied or legally be determined as Māori land, it’s important to acknowledge that it was previously inhabited by Māori for generations and that the current designation of that land is likely due to land confiscation through colonisation.
Therefore, we need to see the historical context, to understand how that has led to our current situations and apply environmental efforts in all land and ocean territories.
Create a Sustainability Policy for your company or production. This communicates your commitment towards implementing environmentally sustainable practice.
It’s really important to scope sustainability on a production properly, so seek expert advice from a sustainability manager before budgeting to ensure you’re aware of both where you need to allocate resources, and where you can save.
Budget your production ensuring that you’re allowing enough resources to meaningfully support environmental sustainability measures. This means allowing for resources to engage with a Sustainability Manager early on in the process.
Before commencing pre-production it is essential to create a Sustainability Action Plan; an outline of the sustainability strategy for your production.
Now is also the time to start your Sustainability Department (the manager in particular), so that they can put together an Sustainability Action Plan, assist in onboarding your crew – establishing good processes from day one.
Carbon foot printing is key to understanding and reducing emissions. Your plan for collecting carbon data should start in pre production, and you should also decide if you want to audit or offset your productions carbon footprint.
Auditing contributes to wider sector knowledge on sustainability, and offsetting can be a way of taking responsibility for the emissions you were not able to eliminate.
As everyone begins work, it’s time to focus on how you can support them in their role, empowering them with the knowledge and resources to implement your Sustainability Action Plan and ensuring you’re communicating the production’s environmental commitments.
Greenlit has a number of templates you can download to support sustainability efforts across your production. If you need further support or advice about any of the mahi you’re doing, get in touch.
An industry-wide collaboration for environmental sustainability within the Aotearoa, New Zealand screen sector