A group of Canada’s major content organizations and funders have formed Green Frame, a coalition with the goal to lower the environmental impact of the Canadian film and TV industry.

The coalition, announced Monday (Sept. 23) at the Sustainable Production Forum (SPF), is spearheaded by CBC/Radio-Canada. Also a part of the coalition is the Bell Fund, the Black Screen Office, the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund, the Canadian Independent Screen Fund for BPOC Creator and the Canada Media Fund (CMF).

Rounding out the group is the Independent Production Fund, the Indigenous Screen Office, the National Film Board of Canada, the Shaw Rocket Fund and Telefilm Canada.

“The screen content industry is embracing a bold shift towards reducing its environmental impact. With Green Frame, we are uniting to drive this change,” said Julie Roy, Telefilm’s executive director and CEO, in a statement. “By harmonizing our efforts and supporting one another, we facilitate the seamless integration of innovation and sustainability within our industry.”

In a release, the coalition outlined four goals: collaborating to make sustainable content creation, production and distribution easier, faster, more impactful and less costly; sharing and leveraging resources to support industry research, joint initiatives and information exchange; engaging communities that are disproportionately affected by climate change; and expanding the network of collaborators, both in and outside of Canada, to share knowledge and learn more about sustainability.

“In the same way we support our country’s storytellers, we also have a responsibility to protect the world in which their stories are told,” said CMF president and CEO Valerie Creighton. “Through Green Frame, we are forging a united path toward sustainable production, ensuring that our industry’s environmental practices evolve as dynamically as our content.”

Coalitions partners such as CBC and Telefilm are among the organizations that have tried to move the needle on reducing the industry’s carbon footprint. In 2023, a CBC report found that the carbon footprint from 64 of their original productions used the energy equivalent of 2,227 homes for one year, or the consumption of 81 barrels of oil.

In early 2024, Telefilm released a study that estimated the total carbon emissions from the Canadian film and TV industry equal the yearly energy use of 1,669 and 61,087 homes respectively.

The Green Frame coalition follows two other major coalitions formed over the past two years, including the Producing for the Planet coalition, which included indie producers such as Blue Ant Media and Boat Rocker Media; and the Canadian Broadcasters for Sustainability (CB4S), including broadcasters such as CBC, Rogers Sports & Media and TVO.

Green Frame will collaborate with these coalitions, as well as Reel Green, Ontario Creates and On Tourne Vert, to help advance the industry’s work on sustainability, said the release.

Image courtesy of SPF; pictured (L-R): Hoda A., Hélène Fearon, John Christou, Mark Shapland, Lisa Clarkson, Elisa Suppa, Marcia Douglas, Melanie Windle