A little over a month ago I was attending the graduation ceremonies at Yale University and it was announced that their graduation would be completely carbon neutral. Per the organizers of the carbon offset program for the Yale graduation:

After conducting a survey of the graduating class, which asked the location from which each guest would be traveling and the mode of transportation used, we determined that family and friends of the graduating class will travel more than 724,000 miles in total, creating approximately 307,300 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions–3,400 pounds from train travel; 29,600 pounds from autos; and 274,300 pounds from flights. The organization WindCurrent has donated 400,000 pounds of carbon offsets (just over 280,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity generated with renewable energy) to account for these emissions.

While conservation is the best way to limit your environmental footprint, you’re still going to leave a mark. To somewhat mitigate this footprint, you can buy carbon offsets, which do what the name suggests and offsets your carbon emissions. The money taken in from carbon offset companies, of which there are many and a few notable ones listed below, are used to invest in a variety of renewable energy and/or emissions reducing initiatives.

The cost of a carbon offsets varies depending on the country where they are purchased (because of low demand the cost in the U.S. tends to be about a third of the cost in Europe where the demand is much higher). The U.S. price is around $5 per metric ton. While WindCurrent donated the carbon offsets for the Yale graduation, the cost for offsetting more than 724,000 miles in travel would have been around $1,000. (The average person can offset their CO2 emissions for around $50 a year.)

So as I sat at the graduation and contemplated the rise in concern over global warming in the past year, thanks in large part to the film An Inconvenient Truth, I thought that it is about time for those in the film production community to do their part. (Carbon offsets were used to make this past Oscars ceremony carbon neutral.)

Regardless of the production the cost would be a small fraction of 1 percent of the budget. Here is a simple carbon calculator where you can enter travel miles and energy used to determine the cost of the offset.

For the major studios that may think that this would be too expensive or complicated to calculate, take a look at the case of HSBC bank.

HSBC is more than just a bank. Sure, it’s flush with $1.5 trillion in assets, and its canny deposits scooped up pre-tax profits of $21 billion last year[2005]. But it’s also got a worldwide staff of 250,000, many of whom spend much of their time in the air shuttling among HSBC’s 10,000 offices. And that makes the London-based megabank both a global building manager and a major travel company.

Environmentally, that’s a pretty big footprint. HSBC may not be responsible for the kind of carbon emissions of, say, Big Oil, but producing the energy sucked up by the bank and its airborne execs resulted in the emission of some 606,300 tons of CO2 in 2003. This year that figure will top 771,630 tons. Unlike its bottom line, that’s not a figure the bank is proud of.

In 2004, HSBC committed to becoming carbon neutral. To offset all this it cost the bank approximately $7 million a year. With 10,000 offices and 250,000 employees I doubt that is more than the coffee budget, nor would it be for a film production, ANY film production. As for trying to calculate the figures for a large production of company virtually all of the carbon offset companies I’ve looked at will calculate the offset cost for businesses with just a few bits of information (travel type and distance, and a monthly energy bill). Furthermore, I would have to think that this cost would be tax-deductible as many, but not all, of the carbon offset companies are non-profits.

As you’ve probably guessed, this is in no way meant to be a comprehensive article on the benefits, costs or real environmental worthiness of carbon offset programs. It’s just meant to help it enter the conversation and urge people to look into themselves. If they agree with the benefits of the system, whether it is just for their own person or their production or entire company, then buy into it. The cost is minimal for the peace of mind it offers.

And who knows, maybe by having an announcement in the opening credits that the production was carbon neutral the audience will be less likely to chuckle at your dramas and grimace at your comedies, as they did my student films way back when.

Here are a few useful links.

http://www.carbonfund.org/

http://www.windcurrent.com/

http://www.terrapass.com/

http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/