Sustainability In Production

Sustainability in Programme Production

We have a duty to ensure we are keeping our environmental impact to a minimum, so it’s vital that environmental and sustainability considerations are embedded in the way our producers work and how we work with them. We also know our audiences are increasingly aware of their environmental impact and it is important we reflect these concerns and experience in the content we make.

We are asking the producers we work with to consider the following steps to help us reduce the environmental impact of our programmes and ensure environmental concerns are embedded in our content:

At the start of your production think about potential environmental impacts (from travel, energy and waste in particular) – choose to minimise negative impacts from the things you can influence;
Have a conversation with your commissioner about opportunities to incorporate sustainability themes in the editorial;
Bring your team together – what opportunities are there for improvement? What support do you need? What changes can you make in your daily work?

Producers / suppliers working with the BBC are asked to consider how their production methods contribute towards the BBC’s Net Zero strategy in the commissioning process.

Sustainability Certification – EcoAudio

EcoAudio is the BBC’s new sustainability certification for audio production. It aims to raise awareness of sustainability issues in programme-making and foster engagement with our audio production community. EcoAudio provides a common standard of sustainable production that teams and shows can achieve to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability.

The certification is currently available to the BBC’s in-house production teams, but it has been piloted with some independent production companies. We are now working with partners across the audio sector to look at making the certification process available pan industry.

Audio Sustainability Form – Editorial Tracking

Launching 1st April 2025

As part of delivering our commitment to the  Climate Content Pledge (CCP), we are introducing the audio sustainability form to begin measuring how climate change, sustainability, nature loss, and our connection to the natural world appear within our audio content.

This will align with reporting for all audio-visual content, which is captured by the on-screen sustainability form. Together they will deliver a pan Content approach to celebrating great work and reporting on it in our Annual Report.

The form has been simply integrated into Proteus and will be part of the production delivery requirements.

It is completed at episodic level, and for ease the form will default to 'No, there are no verbal references'. If there are references productions will be prompted to complete a simple checklist of topics. A review of this trial will be conducted post-launch to ensure compliance.

The new process can support the up-front conversations with commissioners regarding authentic inclusion of environmental themes which are already part of our processes.