Sheffield Doc/Fest is CO2 free
I’m here in Sheffield at the 2006 Sheffield Doc/Fest, and its a frenzy of pitches, parties and performances as some of the world’s most interesting documentary film makers vie for funding and show off their latest projects. This year the Doc/Fest chose to take climate change seriously and selected Carbon Planet to audit the festival’s carbon emissions. The final audit report[PDF], available on the doc/fest website, highlights areas of high greenhouse gas emissions and reveals areas where changes and improvements can be made for future festivals. We found that the Doc/Fest was responsible for 83 tonnes of CO2 equivalent, almost half of which came from air-travel.
The next largest contributors were professional services of the staff (11.4 tonnes, 14 %) and ground transportation producing 8.8 tonnes of CO2e (11 %). Freight services required to forward on the films screened during the Docfest emitted 7.8 tonnes of CO2e (9 %) while electricity requirements for the festival event, office and pre-screenings amounted to 6.4 tonnes of CO2e, 8% of total. The manufacture and waste of plastic items produced 4.7 tonnes of CO2e (5.7 %) while utilisation of paper resulted in the lowest levels (2.8 tonnes of CO2e at 3.4 %).
Carbon Planet transferred 83 NGACs into the festival’s account in the Greenhouse Gas Registry, an independent carbon credits registry. Each NGAC certifies the removal of one tonne of CO2e from the air and its storage for 100 years. As a result the festival has become the world’s first fully CO2 free documentary festival.
In true Web 2.0 spirit, photos from the festival are being poured up into Flickr, tagged with docfest2006. Enjoy. — DS
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