Sustainable Production: Implementing Immediate Change with Mari Jo Winkler
Little Black Book’s Sustainable Production series platforms producers with a passion for sustainability, who have been working to reduce the carbon footprint and environmental impact of their productions.
In this interview, LBB speaks to Mari Jo Winkler, NY-based film and television producer who has executive produced countless high-profile projects including season one of Y: The Last Man, season one of HBO’s Vinyl, Stillwater, The Goldfinch, The Only Living Boy in New York, Premium Rush, The Dictator, Fair Game, and Away We Go - the first US film to have a carbon calculator.
Currently, she is executive producing HBO’s upcoming series, True Detective: Night Country, alongside Icelandic production service Truenorth. Whilst Iceland has strong green credentials already (having a 74% reduction in operational carbon since 2011 and a 19.2% reduction in food waste since 2018, amongst other things), this is the first time a truly green production has run in the country with its own sustainability department.
Truenorth as well has committed to renewable and sustainable energy in all of its future productions, ensuring environmentally friendly filmmaking is a top priority for the production service. Reflecting Iceland’s green focus, they also aim to provide clean energy in studios, office spaces, and on set with the help of electric generators and geothermal energy. With an emphasis on strict recycling and a ‘no single use plastic’ policy, it's not hard to understand why large scale productions and producers such as Mari Jo are keen to work in such a location.
Alongside her work as a celebrated producer, Mari Jo Winkler is a dedicated environmentalist and activist. After participating in Al Gore’s Climate Reality Training in 2008, she was inspired to take an active role in the industry to promote sustainability in an effort to reduce our industry’s carbon footprint - and has put sustainable production at the forefront of her work ever since.
A former board member of the Producers Guild of America and co-founder of PGA Green and the Green Production Guide, she received the 2017 City & State of New York CSR Award for Sustainability & Environmental Impact and is the recipient of the 2019 Charles Fitzsimons Award for her service to the Producers Guild of America. She also recently joined the DGA Sustainable Future Committee as a co-chair.
Here, Mari Jo reflects on her own personal journey with sustainability, shares key resources for the industry, and explains why starting at the earliest stages of production is vital.
Q> Can you tell us about your own personal journey when it comes to getting involved in sustainable production - how did you get started and where has that journey taken you?
Mari Jo> I had a personal epiphany in 2003 thinking about what world we would be leaving behind for my daughter. I started looking at my own life, consumption, waste and started to make modifications thinking about a sustainable lifestyle. I then brought those ideas to my workplace, having always been frustrated with the amount of waste that is created in the industry. I took a film budget and went line by line to look at areas that we could reduce our impact. I started greening film sets thereafter. I got together with fellow producers and formed a committee at the Producers Guild of America called PGA Green to educate producers on how to green their film sets.
At the same time, an environmental group had heard about the work I was doing and asked to study a film I was producing called Away We Go and that was the first US production to have a verified carbon footprint, implementation of alternative fuels, and no single use plastic water bottles on the set. A sustainability report was written and that report went to the heads of physical production at all of the major studios and a partnership was born between PGA Green and the major studios to create the Green Production Guide - a sustainability resource for the industry. We created best practices, an international vendor database for sustainable goods and services, and a carbon calculator for the industry. The next big hurdle we are working on is the transition to clean energy in the industry. To really make the impact that we need to avoid further catastrophic climate occurrences we need to make a bigger impact on moving away from fossil fuels.
Q> What are the conversations that clients are having with you about their desire to reduce the carbon footprint and environmental impact of their content production?
Mari Jo> I work mostly on US-based studio productions and most studio and streamers now have sustainability protocols so there is great interest in reducing carbon footprints in the industry.
Q> Speaking generally, how do you tend to approach assessing and minimising the footprint of the productions you are involved in - and is this something that is built into your processes?
Mari Jo> It is important to start from the earliest stages of production and take into consideration the environmental impact from the beginning of the planning stages. I look at energy use first - what are the impacts of our decisions on where we will shoot? What alternative fuels are available in the location we are considering? What is the impact of air travel? Is there local crew available? Once a decision has been made about locale, I work with my local production team; line producer, production manager, location managers to implement sustainability protocols looking how to conserve fuel and energy, avoiding toxins and pollution, saving water, waste, and reducing plastics and preventing landfill waste. I hire a sustainability supervisor to oversee all sustainability protocols, utilising the Production Environmental Action Checklist (PEACH) found on Green Production Guide.
Q> To what extent do you think the advertising and production world will retain and build on the lessons learned during the pandemic?
Mari Jo> In order for our industry to go back to work in a worldwide pandemic, large-scale investment was made by studios, financiers, and streamers to implement Covid Protocols. The way I see it, in order for us to maintain our livelihood and for it to not be ravaged by catastrophic climate occurrences, the same large-scale investment needs to be made in transitioning us to a clean energy and promoting sustainability protocols to reduce our industries carbon footprint.
Q> What have you been finding are the most useful tools, resources and partners for reducing environmental impact/carbon footprint of productions?
Mari Jo> I always hire a sustainability supervisor to oversee all sustainability protocols, utilising the Production Environmental Action Checklist (PEACH).
Q> How is sustainability being built into your training and development for members of the production team?
Mari Jo> Up until now I will typically educate and train my production staff. The studios that I typically work with have guidelines that a director of sustainability, alongside the show’s sustainability supervisor, will work to implement. This is an area that needs more development for crews around the world. I believe there should be a worldwide sustainability training available to all cast and crew.
Q> In some ways it seems that when it comes to reducing carbon footprint, the advertising and marketing industry is focused almost exclusively on production (for good reason - there are obvious areas in production where clear, substantial and measurable progress can be made). What are your thoughts on this - is it a positive that production is able to take the lead or is there a risk that the industry will take the win and fail to look elsewhere?
Mari Jo> I view any effort to work sustainability only as positive. It is critical given the global climate crisis that as an industry we must lead by example. The alternative is to do nothing which is worse.
Q> Looking more broadly than carbon footprint, what are the other ways that production can be more sustainable?
Mari Jo> We can already see that climate change is impacting our productions. Wildfires and extreme weather conditions like rain, hurricanes, extreme heat, and flooding are affecting our productions, causing schedule delays, and costing millions of dollars. But in addition to being impacted by the effects of climate change our industry also contributes to the problem.
The global entertainment industry has a massive carbon footprint, producing millions of metric tons of CO2 a year. Our industry’s carbon emission potentially surpasses those of the clothing, hotel, aerospace and semiconductor industries. Depending upon the size of the production, a film can omit between 390 to nearly 3400 metric tons of CO2. And an average scripted one hour show can omit 77 metric tons per episode. It is important to understand 45% to 60% of those CO2 emissions can be attributed to fuel use. This data can be found in a report published by the Sustainable Production Alliance (SPA) in 2021.
To really address our industry’s part in reducing carbon emissions, we need to move away from fossil fuel use and towards clean energy. We must lower our fuel use by making a smart power plan and right sizing the use of diesel generators which can reduce the number of diesel generators needed, use renewable energy wherever possible, convert our vehicles, cars and trucks to an electric fleet, and make a complete transition to LED lighting, just to name a few changes. This transition to clean energy, while urgent, will take time and planning.
But we all can help make our sets more sustainable immediately by implementing that smart power plans, Pairing smaller diesel generators with battery packs that power video village, craft service, DIT, sound and smaller sets is a great first step. Reducing and ideally eradicating single use plastic and paper will also make a large impact.
Plastic is responsible for 3.4% of greenhouse gas emissions globally, largely because the majority of plastics are produced from fossil fuels. A lot of plastic is made from toxic chemicals and cannot be recycled and additionally the majority of recyclable plastic ends up not recycled but in landfills or the ocean.
Paper production also contributes to many environmental issues, water pollution, the destruction of CO2-absorbing forests and greenhouse gas emissions. About a third of those emissions stem from disposal of paper in landfills producing methane, a greenhouse gas with 21 times the heat trapping power of CO2. There are digital solutions such as a program called Scriptation that makes it possible for a production to go paperless.
There are many protocols that can be put into place which are laid out in the Production Environmental Action Checklist (PEACH).
However I would say that what is most important is to start early with implementation. Producers and directors should set forth before production begins to set achievable sustainability goals and to keep the environmental impact in mind at every turn. Early and often communication with your cast and crew is key in a successful sustainability plan.
Q> To what extent is the social or community impact of a production an important part of the sustainability conversation?
Mari Jo> I shot all over the US and internationally and I can honestly say that implementing sustainability forms a community not only on the set, but with communities at large. It is important to look at the community in which you are filming and protect it, particularly when filming in natural environments.
We tend to land in a community and create jobs, and infuse the local economy with cash (i.e.; purchasing goods and services, eating at local restaurants, shopping at local stores) but we must be mindful of what we take and only take what we need.
Q> Can you share some examples of projects you’ve worked on where you feel that the carbon footprint and sustainability were tackled in interesting or effective ways?
Mari Jo> All of my projects since 2003 have been sustainable productions and each had unique aspects based on locale.
Q> What advice would you give to anyone working in production, whether for a production company, agency or brand, who is struggling to get buy-in from their clients?
Mari Jo> Build your case for sustainability. According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we have under seven years to reduce carbon emissions by 50% to avoid irreversible catastrophic climate change. It is critical that we act now and do everything in our power to turn this around.
Simply put, we all need to do our part to minimise the negative impacts on the environment, society, and the economy through responsible operations that do not compromise the needs of future generations.
