Sustainable sets are more than a trend, and British Columbia has been a trailblazer. Beverley Dondale, CEO of Alpha Select Production Services, is spearheading a $242 million studio project in collaboration with the Malahat Nation. The initiative aims to create a carbon-neutral, zero-waste production facility on Vancouver Island. With a phased construction approach, the studio will incorporate renewable energy, waste management, and sustainable practices, with 51% ownership by the Malahat Nation.
The planned facility includes a 10-acre backlot, two production offices, a workshop, warehouse and a double soundstage. Given the island’s lack of waste management options, Dondale has partnered with a building company to help do set deconstruction in a way that salvages the materials and funnels recovered resources back into local nonprofits. She is also partnering with groups to donate unused food and materials to the community.
“We have composting and recycling capabilities,” Dondale explains, emphasizing the need to make sustainability easy for production teams. She has collaborated with companies that will offer tax receipts for donations, making it financially viable for productions to participate.
Dondale is confident that if she builds it, productions will come.
In Vancouver, major studios are also pursuing sustainability goals. Shannon Bart, Netflix’s senior manager for sustainability & productions, notes that industry studies point to fuel as the largest source of on-set emissions, with around 70% from vehicles and 30% from diesel generators. Since 2020, Netflix has implemented a sustainability roadmap through 2030, focusing on energy efficiency, vehicle electrification, clean mobile power and renewable energy sourcing. “So we are really focusing on those areas in terms of driving down that fossil fuel use and transitioning to cleaner sources of energy,” she says.
So not only are these cleaner options better for the communities being used for production, it also gives filmmakers a lot of creative freedom and production agility.
For example, on “Virgin River,” which is filmed in B.C., the production was able to use small, mobile batteries instead of generators. This means that they had access to film in locations like a boat or big suspension bridges where it would be otherwise impossible, explains Bart. “You get access to those beautiful shots,” she says.
In June 2023, in partnership with Disney, Netflix had co-launched the Clean Mobile Power Initiative, which aims to find, test, pilot and scale up cost competitive zero emission solutions in order to accelerate the industry’s transition away from diesel generators.
“When it comes to sustainability in production, we’re focused on developing long-term solutions that can be easily replicated and executed around the world,” says Yalmaz Siddiqui, VP, environmental sustainability, the Walt Disney Co. “We also acknowledge that each production is distinct, and as such, we strive to engage the local community in unique ways to reduce emissions, waste and impact
from materials.”
Despite the post-SAG-AFTRA and WGA strike downturn, in which fewer shows are being greenlit, “Even with the market fluctuations, the ties and reputation that B.C. possesses are tremendously strong and that made for a resilient year in 2023,” says B.C. film commissioner Marnie Gee.
During the strikes in 2023, Gee says that B.C. saw an uptick in Canadian productions and shares that early estimates shows that domestic activity was only down 9%. In April, Creative B.C. and the Province of British Columbia announced that they’d invest $15.9 million over three years to support domestic productions.
“Right now, we’re focusing on workforce development, environmental sustainability resources and training for industry, which will be supported by the historic investment from the province,”
says Gee.
Creative BC is expecting an additional 1.04 million square feet of production space across 50 new stages to become available in 2025.
Meanwhile on Vancouver Island, film commissioner Kathleen Gilbert has seen an increase in requests in the past month. “It feels like we are on our way to full recovery,” she says, noting that so far up to August of this year, they’ve had 16 shows, with another three to start in September.
