Thankfully, after a pandemic pause, lots of us are starting to go back to work now, either picking back up where we left off, or starting on new productions.

As we are all going into a fresh start, we wanted to give you some pointers of things you could ask your productions (and maybe pressure them in to) to create a more sustainable workplace for us! Even asking the question will make them think, and allow you to see how they are handing sustainability. This will enable you to design your working environment to run as sustainably as possible.

Ask them NOT to give us new water bottles. We all have them already, no one needs another plastic bottle lingering at the back of a cupboard. See if they will encourage people to bring their own cutlery and food container to work for catering. Again, no need to provide us with a branded one, we all have spare Tupperware and an odd fork that doesn't match the others we can bring in!

The same goes for coffee cups.

Encourage no plastic cups and water bottles on set. Although most productions I have been on have actioned this already, it's good to check. Is it possible for craft to have a soda stream or similar if they are offering sparkling water to cast and crew? That cuts out all of our single use water bottle needs!

See if they will let us use suppliers such as Loop Store if we're ordering food for the department, and if they could encourage other departments to do the same.

Check before you start if they will be happy for us to redistribute unused product through one of the Charitable Redistribution companies we have highlighted in the directory. Some productions can be funny about this, so the sooner we ask the more likely they will be to warm up to the idea.

Make sure there are clearly labelled recycling and composting bins in/outside our busses and rooms. Ask if they have figured out how to recycle their shredded paper? So much paper is used by call sheets and scripts, all which get shredded. Shredded paper can't go into regular recycling, so they need to have addressed this. Check!

Are there charging points available for electric cars?

When giving out wrap gifts, maybe ask people if they want them? How many of us really want the branded t-shirt or will it just go to a charity shop? Would they consider planting trees in our name (for example) instead?

Is there anything we've missed! Feel free to let us know on the contact us page.

Thanks! TEC x