The following is an excerpt from an op-ed featured in The Conversation portal. Read the rest here.
The Bafta film awards are brilliant at making film feel like it matters. The clothes, the cameras, the applause, the shared cultural moment. That spectacle is the point.
But it also has a climate shadow. Not just from the night itself, but from the behaviour it effectively rewards and normalises in the weeks around it.
Here’s the awkward truth: the biggest carbon impact in film and TV isn’t the red carpet. It’s travel. And awards season is, in effect, a celebration of travel.
Industry data backs this up. Bafta Albert is the film and TV industry’s sustainability organisation which supports productions to measure and reduce their environmental impact.
It highlights that productions that report their emissions find that around 65% come from travel and transport, with flights alone accounting for roughly 30% of the total. Energy use – mainly from studios and on-location generators – makes up about a fifth, while materials and waste account for the rest. In short: the carbon is mostly off camera.
So what about the Bafta film awards themselves? Read the rest here.
