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Leading the charge on local production’s sustainability push, kids’ quiz series Brain Busters is working towards carbon neutrality. 

The production team at WhitebaitMedia in Christchurch have previously used the BAFTA-created Albert carbon calculator but have recently been using a test mode of New Zealand’s own Greenlit calculator to ensure they are able to assess the full impacts of production to enable carbon offset.

Reuben Davidson, Brain Busters series producer says:  “Brain Busters has made a commitment to have a positive impact for our audience without having a negative impact on our environment.

“We can’t wait to be asked, we need to step up now and take responsibility for offsetting our emissions. Our whole team is working hard to make that a reality and Greenlit are an important ally and part of that process. I’ve been so impressed by the passion and energy our team have brought to leading and progressing this important mahi.”

The series’ production manager, Fenella Bowater explains that the show is measuring as many key data points as possible as part of the process: “This includes things like flights, vehicle use, catering and more - they all get meticulously tracked to help give us our overall carbon footprint,” she explains.  “After we have measured, and reduced our footprint as much as possible, our offsetting journey will be a mixture of local community projects such as tree planting in the Christchurch red zone, to purchasing carbon credits with New Zealand based and certified providers.”

Her advice for other New Zealand screen producers is: “Start small if you need to, but most importantly start as soon as you can. The more people doing this mahi, the more of an impact we can have as an industry, and yes measuring is super important to give us goals, but reducing is the most important part. Also, let’s start talking about sustainable productions, encouraging sustainable practices and make it part of our culture in this incredible and creative industry.”

Greenlit Chair, Craig Gainsborough, says the team are planning for the carbon calculator testing taking place between 14 May and the end of July with the carbon calculator becoming publicly available in August.

He says: “I think the biggest reward has been seeing the increasing desire from the industry to take measurable steps towards environmental sustainability, and the moves from commissioning bodies and funding bodies towards monitoring and reporting on their own footprints.”

Rose Archer, Greenlit’s sustainability manager and a steering committee member, says it was important for the team to ensure what is a very technically complex process could be managed by a system that feels intuitive and user friendly.  “We’ve both put a lot of brain power into figuring it out, but Craig in particular has been working his socks off,” she says. “We are both motivated to make something that can really harness people’s enthusiasm effectively. We’re trying to make the technical aspects of data collecting as straight forward as possible. We want people to be able to put their time and creativity into reduction, not just foot printing. Which is why we’re building a fit for purpose, user friendly carbon calculator for the New Zealand screen sector. But it’s a massive, complex project with a lot of moving parts!”