Over 100 high-profile actors, including Mark Rylance, Hayley Atwell, David Harewood and Bill Nighy, have signed their support for Equity’s ‘Green Rider’ plan, which aims to boost sustainability in UK film and TV production.
The proposed Green Rider can be added to actors’ contracts in order to state their own sustainability commitments, and to negotiate bolder sustainability standards on set before accepting a job.
For actors, this would mean avoiding clauses in contracts that consume a lot of materials and carbon, like private jets, while they could also request that productions hire a sustainability lead and only provide low-carbon transportation.
The eventual aim for the Green Rider is for it to be included in the collective agreements that Equity holds with producers.
Equity is in the process of arranging pilots of the scheme with BBC, ITV Studios and Sky Studios, with further details to be announced at the Edinburgh TV Festival today (August 22).
Other notable actors to sign their support include: Ben Whishaw, Gemma Arterton, Stephen Fry, Bella Ramsey, Paapa Essiedu, Nabhaan Rizwan, Juliet Stevenson, Dame Harriet Walter, Jonathan Bailey, Danusia Samal, Will Attenborough, Fehinti Balogun, Tom Burke, Rosalie Craig, Natalie Dormer, Adrian Dunbar, Jerome Flynn, Johnny Flynn, Freddie Fox, Romola Garai, George Mackay, Nikesh Patel, Maxine Peake, and Miranda Richardson.
The Green Rider acknowledges that “where artists arrive on a project that is already filming, there is a limit to the sustainability measures they can push for” but where “the artist is employed earlier on in the process as ‘Attached Talent’ or in an executive producer role, more comprehensive requests can be made”.
The Green Rider was created by ‘Equity for a Green New Deal’ – a network of union members campaigning for better environmental practices in the sector.
Rylance said: “Film production is notorious for its waste and unecological practices. This Green Rider is a template to help all film and TV artists to ask for more ecological practices. Just because we can’t do everything, doesn’t mean we can’t do anything. Let’s clean up our workplace.”
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