What We Did
To understand where our biggest climate-related impacts are, and where we should focus our efforts to reduce our carbon emissions, we needed to get a baseline measure of Screen Ireland’s carbon footprint. With the help of external consultants, we conducted a carbon footprinting exercise, using the internationally recognised ‘Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard’ to guide our approach.
We selected 2018 as our baseline year. This year was chosen as it aligns to the 2016-2018 time frame that the Irish Government and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) ask public sector bodies to use as a baseline in order to report against statutory targets. It also represents a ‘normal’ year of activity for Screen Ireland as compared to 2020 or 2021 with the disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic.
We looked at our Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions across Scope 1, 2 and 3 where:
- Scope 1 are direct GHG emissions from sources controlled or owned by an organisation (e.g. fuel combustion in furnaces, boilers, or company owned vehicles).
- Scope 2 are indirect GHG emissions from electricity purchased.
- Scope 3 are GHG emissions from all other upstream and downstream activities across an organisation’s value chain (e.g. business travel, employee commuting, waste disposal, purchased goods and services, transportation and distribution).
The Results
Our overall carbon footprint for 2018 across Scopes 1, 2 and 3 was 88.87 tonnes of carbon.*
Screen Ireland has zero scope 1 emissions. We do not have gas fired boilers in our office (all heat is electric), and we do not own a fleet of company cars.
Our scope 2 emissions come from the purchase of electricity for our Dublin and Galway offices and generated 37.47 tonnes of CO2e, representing 40% of our overall footprint.
The scope 3 emission categories that were relevant to Screen Ireland and that we were able to measure include travel for business reasons (flights, hotels, road mileage, taxi, bus, and rail transport), and waste (wastewater only). These generated 55.38 tonnes of CO2e representing 60% of our overall footprint.
Other scope 3 emission categories that were identified as relevant include employee commuting and the use of couriers. However, there is more work to be done to collect data for these categories in order to incorporate them into our baseline calculation. At a practical level, we don’t expect that, even when incorporated, these categories will significantly alter Screen Ireland’s overall carbon footprint.
Now that we have our baseline measure we will track our impacts across Scopes 2 and 3 going forward, aiming to reduce our impacts in line with defined targets.
*The term carbon is used as shorthand for carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Carbon is the primary greenhouse gas emitted through human activities.
Carbon Footprint in Numbers
Carbon Emissions Across Scopes 1, 2 & 3
Scope 1: 0 tonnes
Screen Ireland has zero scope 1 emissions.
Scope 2: 37.47 tonnes
Our scope 2 emissions represent 40% of our footprint and come from purchasing electricity for our Dublin and Galway offices.
Scope 3: 55.38 tonnes
Our scope 3 emissions represent 60% of our footprint and are mostly from business travel.
Breakdown of Scope 3 Emissions
84% of our Scope 3 emissions are from air travel.
The remaining 16% comes mostly from other forms of business travel.
It splits out across road mileage, hotel stays, bus, rail and taxi travel, and a small amount of emissions from wastewater.
Understanding the impact of the productions we fund
Although not counted as part of Screen Ireland’s carbon footprint, it was important to us to understand the carbon footprint of the television and film productions that we fund.
To get an estimate of this, we used data from the UK’s BAFTA/albert 2019/2020 report where they provide the average carbon impact of a range of different on-screen genres, from dramas, to documentaries, to animations. This is UK data, not Irish-specific data, but we can assume a broadly similar level of impact in Ireland.
What the calculation showed us is that Screen Ireland funded productions, across the drama, animation, factual and shorts categories, generated approximately 2,039 tonnes of carbon* in 2018. This is based on a total of 4,812 minutes of on-screen content that was produced.
Clearly, this figure dwarfs our own carbon footprint of 88.87 tonnes of carbon and highlights that where Screen Ireland can really have an impact in terms of influencing climate action is through promoting and supporting carbon emissions reductions across our industry.
Note that the figure of 2,039 tonnes is only representative of productions that were funded or part-funded by Screen Ireland in 2018. It does not represent all production that happens in Ireland, including inward international film and TV production. Clearly this would be a much higher figure. Establishing this baseline figure for the wider industry and working with the industry to reduce is will be a key focus of our Sustainability Plan over the coming years.
Screen Ireland funded TV and film production footprint
In 2018, Screen Ireland funded 4,812 minutes of TV & Film production
across the drama, animation, factual and shorts categories, which emitted
approximately 2,039 tonnes of carbon.
Screen Ireland carbon footprint
By comparison, Screen Ireland’s own activities emitted 88 tonnes of
carbon in the same year.
