Producers Guild Unveils Toolkit to Help Creatives Make Business Case for Sustainability On Set

As seen in The Hollywood Reporter

The Producers Guild of America has unveiled a new sustainability initiative that is aimed at helping producers make the business case for eco-friendly decisions on film and television sets.

The PGA’s new Sustainability Tool Kit, which launched on Wednesday, offers guidance on how producers can make environmentally impactful decisions in their development and production processes while staying on (or even under) budget. Created in communication with multiple labor groups, the Tool Kit offers key emissions-lowering production advice, thoughts on climate-focused storytelling and advice for how to talk to harried Hollywood types about sustainability goals.

Producer Mari-Jo Winkler (True Detective, Y: The Last Man), the PGA’s Sustainability Task Force co-chair, says the Tool Kit aims to educate all guild members on sustainable choices they can make on set.

”The PGA was like, listen, we need to do something for all the other people who are producing and don’t necessarily have protocols from a major studio,” says Winkler. “Most studios and streamers do have checklists and protocols. We felt like we needed to educate a whole other faction of the PGA and make sure that all bases were covered.”

Adds her Task Force co-chair Lydia Dean Pilcher (producer of Queen of Katwe), with the resource the PGA is attempting to support producers that are just starting sustainability efforts. “There’s a lot of lessons that have been learned” over the years, she says. “So how can we [communicate] these lessons to people who are just coming for this conversation for the first time?”