Can Animation Render a More Sustainable Production Future?

This article originally appeared in the June/July ’23 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 331)

Animation has the ability to bridge gaps of understanding and can transport audiences to places they couldn’t otherwise go. It’s been a vehicle for empathy and for division, but much of the time animation is a place of creative delight. Behind the scenes, however, the industry has grappled with most of the same issues experienced by those in live action — including systemic inequity, lack of diversity and processes that, like all industries, have a negative impact on the environment.

Change in all areas requires collective will, understanding and resources to support transition. That perspective, seen in the work done by a variety of other organizations from Women in Animation to Free The Work, was the inspiration behind the development of Green The Bid. Green The Bid was launched nearly three years ago to bring together the entire advertising industry — brands, agencies, production and post studios, including VFX and animation, along with individuals and supporting organizations — to reduce the waste and shrink the carbon footprint of our industry.

Today, over 400 companies around the world of all sizes have pledged to participate and take meaningful action. The participation is unique to what each company does — or, as I like to put it, according to their superpower. For animation companies, this means adopting some key practices in office:

Going paperless, eliminating single-use plastics, getting on a green/renewable energy plan (where available), turning off climate control when not needed, eliminating red meat in catering and food orders, donating and composting leftover food, promoting carpooling or public transport commuting and minimizing the use of toxic solvents. Unlike live action, animation and VFX don’t have generators and idling trucks, numerous people flying to location, massive set builds (with rare exception) or wardrobe.

‘We are expert at designing environments: It’s up to us to decide how we envision and create our future.’

What animation and VFX do have is an ever-growing data problem. File sizes are just part of the issue. The other is the tendency for people to save everything forever just in case. At the grassroots, non-profit industry organization Green The Bid, we started looking at this issue in collaboration with the very first post house that joined us, Cosmo Street. What started as a conversation about what post could do to support environmental change, led to the realization that there was an invisible environmental hazard.

‘The cloud’ is a buoyant and fluffy name for massive cooling facilities. According to Decarbonizing the Digital Journey by U.K.-based Filmlocker, three percent of the world’s electricity is used to power these centers, accounting for one percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Another way to think about the impact, is that 10 terabytes of storage is roughly equal to 43 flights between Atlanta and New York.

Cosmo Street’s Jaclyn Paris, who leads Green The Bid’s best practices efforts in this area, understands and appreciates how we landed here. She also believes that the solution starts with education and coalition building around best practices. “Media is generated in unprecedented volume, created at higher resolutions than ever before, saved in limitless iterations with excessive redundancy and stored for undefined periods of time,” she explains. “Some files are so old that current software systems can’t realistically use them. A culture of anxiety around loss, mixed with the misconception of a clean and abundant cloud is the disastrous misunderstanding of our time. Yvette [Cobarrubias, Cosmo Street’s Founder] and I joined forces with GTB to change that.”

As with everything Green The Bid does, these practices must be developed, pre-competitively, by those who have to tackle the issue firsthand. As we work to provide a consensus framework around best practices for data, here are some things that can be done immediately:

• Shed self-consciousness or shame around your contribution to the climate crisis: We are all contributors, and we can all make positive change. Take an audit of your workflow and systems, and the way you/your company store media and for how long. Consolidate, consolidate, consolidate! If you haven’t already, define active, near-term and long-term, and create a plan that is clearly defined to both internal teams and clients. Will you wipe files after delivery? In six months? Know the what, where, when and how and enact the plan partnership with all stakeholders.
• In some countries, legislation is becoming a lever for change, but we cannot wait for governmental regulation to take action. There isn’t the luxury of time, and the benefit of transforming from within is we can do it in a way that supports the industry to become a better version of ourselves. After all, we are expert at designing environments: It’s up to us to decide how we envision and create our future.

Jessie Nagel is the co-founder of Green The Bid and communications agency Hype. She is also honored to be an original founding member of Women in Animation.

Learn more about Green The Bid at greenthebid.earth.