There’s no escaping the fact that sustainability is a buzzword right now. But it’s happening for real at Standby Productions. We’re aiming to be much more mindful of our beautiful environment and the need to do our bit to protect it before it’s too late, so we’ve committed the business to positive change.

 

We’ve recently announced our partnership with Lancashire Wildlife Trust, whereby we’ve pledged a financial commitment of 1 percent of total turnover on top of filming donations and volunteering on peatland across Greater Manchester, Lancashire and North Merseyside. The funds will go towards protecting precious peatland, which plays a vital role in our ecosystem as it soaks up twice as much carbon as the world’s forests, something we admit we were not previously aware of. It will only make a small dent in our profits, but the impact for them will be huge.

The partnership came about when we approached LWT in a bid to donate trees, but they informed us that conserving peatland was, in fact, far more crucial due to the vital role it plays in the ecosystem as it stores more carbon than a forest.

“We are absolutely delighted to be working with Standby Productions. A large part of Greater Manchester was once a huge peatland called Chat Moss, but sadly now only fragments of it remain. By working to restore these we are not only recreating homes for lots of rare and specialised plants and animals, but also helping to halt the release of huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. However, this crucial work is simply not possible without the support of our companies such as Standby Productions. This partnership will help us make a real difference to the fight against both our climate and biodiversity crises.”

– Sarah Johnson, Lancashire Peatlands Initiative Project Manager, at Lancashire Wildlife Trust.

Collectively, video production companies have a big voice in the marketing arena, with access to clients who have got a gigantic reach and a message to share. What if we could encourage our clients to talk about their own efforts to help the environment and build it into their marketing campaigns? What if we tried to find out what our clients are doing to help save the planet and then build that into their video content – either as a standalone film or a nod to it within their adverts  or promotional videos? Where we begin to put the environment alongside brand to increase visibility of a more ‘planet first’ mentality. 

It’s hard to deny that the old ways of working were damaging to the environment – hundreds of plastic water bottles for every shoot, costumes and props consistently binned, destined for landfill, and meetings for meeting’s sake not to mention hundreds of flights to exotic locations for good light. So something had to give before the planet does.

 

We’re calling for video production studios across the north to join us, copy us, do as we do. Together, we can make a massive difference – produce less waste, save energy and be part of the solution instead of continuing to contribute to the problem that’s destroying the globe. 

We know we’re not the only ones with this on our radar. There’s talk across the marketing industry about how we can collectively help make a difference and that’s really exciting because it’s when change happens.

Outside of the sector, we’ve got clients who are already helping and challenging the destruction of the world’s rainforests by pledging to plant a tree for every project completed. This is massively important as globally, 15 billion trees are cut down every year and the rainforests stand at half their original size. We’re sure many other companies are doing their bit to help and I’d encourage them to shout about it. 

Further information about our corporate partnership with The Lancashire Wildlife Trust, head to our new website’s dedicated environment page https://www.standbyproductions.co.uk/environment/