Reduce number of flights to accelerate sustainable production, says BAFTA Albert
BAFTA Albert, the UK screen industry organisation for environmental sustainability, is calling for urgent action on reducing air travel within the film and TV production sector, as it publishes Accelerate 2025, a report and practical guide to sustainability for the industry.
Accelerate 2025, described by BAFTA Albert as “the first ever practical guide to sustainable production” lays out where the industry’s biggest impacts still remain and sets out a series of recommendations to show how production teams can reduce the industry’s carbon emissions and environmental impact. It calls on better leadership from the top of the industry to drive change.
According to its own calculator data, that was submitted voluntarily from more than 2,500 productions in both and film and TV, the industry reported nearly 175,000 tonnes of carbon emissions in 2024 – equivalent to the annual footprint of almost 40,000 UK citizens.
The top contributor to these carbon emissions is travel, which the sustainability body says accounted for two-thirds (65%) of industry emissions last year, with flights alone accounting for 30% of that total.
“Put simply, it looks like the film and TV industry has a problem with planes,” writes Ralph Lee, chair of BAFTA Albert, in the report’s forward. “With flight emissions persistently high, we believe that industry leaders have some hard questions to ask about whether all these flights are essential.”
Road travel is also singled out in the report, with emissions from car transport reported to account for nearly a fifth of the total carbon footprint of the sector.
Another area of ongoing concern is emissions from generators when filming on set, with three million litres of fuel reported to have been burnt in this way in 2024, releasing 7,206 tonnes of polluting CO2 equivalent into the atmosphere. BAFTA Albert says this is equivalent to driving approximately 26 million miles in the average UK family petrol car.
The report provides guidance on how to best tackle these persistent impacts, including reducing air travel and switching to economy class where it is unavoidable, which on itself it claims could save 15% of carbon emissions.
It also calls for the speeding up of the adoption of electric vehicles, which currently only account for 2% of car journeys. Swapping a third of car journeys for EVs would take out 5% of carbon emissions.
Eliminating fuel from temporary power on set by replacing diesel with HVO in the short term would save 5% of emissions, the report says. Battery power in the long term could make further savings.
Meanwhile, switching all mains power to renewables would save 6% of the overall carbon footprint, it sets out.
In the report, BAFTA Albert also calls for a new approach to materials and waste, reducing the use of virgin materials like timber for set-building and sourcing second-hand clothes for costumes, alongside cutting back on the consumption of red meat and food waste.
And there is a call for better reporting data to improve accuracy. BAFTA Albert says it will assist with this with the launch next year of its own “next-generation calculator”.
BAFTA Albert managing director, Matt Scarff, said: “This is the UK film and TV industry’s first ever practical guide to sustainable production. It gives concrete, measurable actions which will reduce both carbon emissions and wider environmental impact. These actions are ambitious, but they are achievable. They will require fundamental changes to the way TV and film content is made, and they will also need wider cultural change to embed sustainability at the heart of the industry at all levels, from commissioner through production teams and the vital supply chain. What we are outlining here aims to make sustainability a core part of the industry’s DNA: second nature to those working to make content.”
Lee added: “Real change will only happen when leaders take an active role in supporting those making content: pushing for more sustainable solutions, education and better data to measure change as it happens. There is so much at stake here for future generations.”
Founded in 2011 to support the film and TV industry to reduce the environmental impacts of production, BAFTA Albert’s calculator and toolkits are now used by 2,540 productions from 101broadcasters from 24 countries. BAFTA Albert’s Industry Advisory Group is made up of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Netflix, Pact, Paramount, Sky and Warner Bros. Discovery.
Three years ago, alongside leading broadcasters and streamers in the UK, it launched the Climate Content Pledge. BAFTA Albert said it planned to publish a dedicated Climate Content Action Report in 2026.
