More than 100 actors including Mark Rylance, Bella Ramsey, David Harewood and Ben Whishaw are backing Equity’s Green Rider, a proposed agreement between artists and productions to improve sustainability in the UK’s TV and film industry. 
 

The new proposal includes clauses such as opting for travel by train over planes, avoiding high-impact choices such as fossil-fuel powered road vehicles and oversized trailers for star cast, reusing sets and costume and considering the carbon/environmental cost of additional food or comfort requests that require runners to go off site, and reducing this accordingly.
 

According to BAFTA albert‘s Screen New Deal report, the average tentpole (big-budget) film production produces 2,840 tonnes of CO2. 
 

“Equity’s Green Rider is a tool to empower artists,” reads the statement, issued by Equity today, 22 Aug, to tie in with a panel session at the Edinburgh International TV Festival. “It provides a framework with which to negotiate better practices in TV and film. As actors and creatives, we support the creation and implementation into standard Equity contracts of a Green Rider”.

Signatories of The Green Rider Actors’ Statement include Mark Rylance (pictured above right), Hayley Atwell, Ben Whishaw, Bill Nighy, Gemma Arterton, Stephen Fry, David Harewood, Bella Ramsey (pictured left), Paapa Essiedu, Nabhaan Rizwan, Juliet Stevenson, Dame Harriet Walter, Jonathan Bailey, Danusia Samal, Will Attenborough, Fehinti Balogun, Tom Burke, Rosalie Craig, Natalie Dormer, Adrian Dunbar, Jerome Flynn, Johnny Flynn, Freddie Fox, Romola Garai, George Mackay, Nikesh Patel, Maxine Peake, Miranda Richardson, and more.

Equity is discussing a scheme with the BBC, ITV Studios and Sky Studios to pilot  the Green Rider in upcoming productions in order to inform next steps, with further details to be announced at an Edinburgh TV Festival panel on 22 August. The pilots will be complemented by Equity’s own work to engage and inform members, with the aim of supporting a cohesive and joined up path to sustainable production.
 

Mark Rylance said: “Film production is notorious for its waste and unecological practices. This Green Rider is a template to help all film and TV artists to ask for more ecological practices. Just because we can’t do everything, doesn’t mean we can’t do anything. Let’s clean up our workplace.”
 

Bella Ramsey added: “Equity’s Green Rider is a practical route to positive change in the film and television industry in regards to sustainability. We can make all the films in the world about climate change but unless we are environmentally conscious in the process of making them, our efforts are superficial. The media has historically inspired change, so I’m excited about the introduction of this Green Rider and the conversations it will incite.”
 

Mark Rylance image via Garry Knight/Creative Commons; Bella Ramsey image via GabboT/Creative Commons.