Calculator Troubleshooting and Support
How to Use Your Budget as a Guide
This video covers:
- Starting early, and the stages of production
- Setting up a campaign and project(s)
- Identifying relevant line items in your budget
- Entering the data
- Tips for easy data gathering and entry
- Completing a footprint
This session is suited to:
Production teams working at advertising agencies and production companies who will be contributing data to a footprint.
Running time: 20 minutes
Help Videos
These videos provide step by step support to measure projects in the carbon calculator.
How to sign up for an account
How to log in
How to edit your own user information
How to add, edit and delete users at your company
How to start a campaign, assign brands and prod consultancies, and add campaign users
How to start a project, assign other contributors and invite project users
How to input activities
How to complete a footprint
What you see as a reviewer company
How to download a CSV file of your emissions data
1-2-1 Troubleshooting
Do you need some extra support with the calculator? Book a 10 minute session with our team.
Learning the Lingo
Companies whose users and admins will view (not input) carbon activity data about campaigns to which the company has been assigned (and the campaign’s associated projects).
Companies whose users and admins will input and view carbon activity data about motion, stills and audio projects to which the company has been assigned.
A role taken on by a contributor company on a particular campaign.
The Principal Production Partner is the main supplier of production services to the advertiser, who will be billing them for said services.
A role taken on by a contributor company on a particular campaign (meaning they only see specific projects within the campaign, to which they have been assigned by the PPP).
A role fulfilled by an individual at any company using the tool. Every user belongs to at least one company.
A user can view every project they have personally created or been assigned to (and the associated campaign details).
An admin can view every project that has been created or been assigned to their company users.
The admin is responsible for managing the company’s users and details.
An entity to which projects belong. A campaign must be created before a project. Each campaign has its own overview page, where varying detail of data is visible depending on the company the user / admin belongs to.
Each project belongs to a campaign. A project can be defined as audio, stills or motion.
Each activity falls under one of the activity areas: Non-filming spaces, Filming spaces, Travel and Transport, Accommodation, Materials, Disposal, Post-Production.
This depends on a number of factors:
- The scale of the production (the budget, basically)
- The number of locations
- The number of contributor companies involved
- How familiar the contributor companies are with the tool and whether they have used it before
- When the information is logged – we would recommend it’s started early and then simply tweaked as the project progresses, in the same way a budget would be, rather than trying to do it all at the end
- How readily available the information is (i.e. whether suppliers have been notified upfront that they will need to provide specific details and whether they are able to do so at the point of invoicing)
- Whether entries can be grouped together (see next question)
- Whether any amendments are required once the AdGreen team have reviewed the project (see Reviewing question in the section above)
There will often be opportunities to collate entries. As an example, 25 crew cars can be expressed as a total number of miles rather than individual items, e.g.:
25 medium cars * average of X miles per day return * X shoot days = X miles
Yes, many of the fields have an option to input by spend, e.g. Taxis, Generator Fuel.
Some fields have benchmarks you can use instead, e.g. energy consumption in production spaces. For those which don’t, the more accurate you can be, the better, however we understand it is not always possible to obtain exact information.
Only enter production offices if it is a line item in the budget that you’re working with. In most cases we expect it won’t be, as office overheads are part of markup. However it might be that you’re a service company organising an office for a visiting team, and charging this cost back. In this case, yes it should be entered.
Only enter water or heating for spaces if it’s detailed on your invoice. In most cases we’d not expect to see water consumption or heating included in project footprints.
Meals are input by type: vegetarian, fish, chicken etc. There isn’t currently an ‘average’ option, but if the caterer is unable to tell you, and no special requests were made of them (e.g. 100% vegan please!), then a 30% veggie 30% fish and 40% beef or chicken is a good rule of thumb. And if you’ve got people staying overnight, don’t forget to include evening meals!
There are infinite possibilities for props, so individual ones are not currently accounted for in the calculator beyond the available inputs in the Materials section (e.g. Timber, Paint, Textiles).
We recommend that users set up test projects to have a play and train their teams if they wish. For good housekeeping, please delete the test project when you’re finished exploring.
They can watch a full walkthrough on this page, and look through all the latest resources, including the How To videos above. We recommend that companies work together internally and set time aside to share skills and get to know the calculator. We’d recommend you ask your regular production partners to do the same.
Letting suppliers know the information you’re likely to need at the time of booking will mean they can provide it more easily when requested. This is another reason to begin your footprint early as it will give you the oversight of what you’re going to require. They can also visit our ‘step by step guide for suppliers’ page which will provide more information.
Check out our data protection policy in the website footer.
The data protection policy appears as a pop up when each new user logs into the tool for the first time. The policy must be agreed to before you can gain access to the tool. If and when the policy is updated, the pop up with the updated text will reappear when the user next logs in.
The T&Cs are between the company registered in the tool and AdGreen. During the account registration if the company is a new one which needs to be added to the tool, the person requesting the company set up must agree to the T&Cs. This person must also agree to being an admin (this can be changed later).
If the T&Cs are updated, all existing admins are notified by email with details of the updates. They take effect 30 days after notification, during which time companies are free to close their accounts in the tool if they no longer agree to the updated T&Cs.
The project budget, which is entered by the PPP, can only be seen by the PPP users attached to the project, plus the PPP’s admin(s), plus any reviewer company users. Schedule 2 of the tool T&Cs covers which company types do what in the tool, and which company types see what in the tool.
The PPP and reviewer companies assigned can see all activity forms input by the PPP and the TPPP. The TPPP only have visibility of the data they input and an overview of the carbon emissions for everyone on that project. Schedule 2 of the tool T&Cs covers which company types do what in the tool, and which company types see what in the tool.
The ability to download a .csv file of projects, which you’ll be able to sort and filter in a multitude of ways, is already available to all users – see here how to do this – How to download a CSV file of your emissions data.
Those familiar with albert will know that they offer certification of footprints, which requires a certain number of sustainable production criteria to be met, and evidence provided by the production team is audited by albert staff. We’re looking at what an AdGreen equivalent might look like, along with the resources required to bring it to life. Sign up to our newsletter for updates.
You can offset with our partner, Ecologi, either accessing their services via the calculator (a link appears once a footprint is Complete) or you can go direct to their website anytime.
We advocate for offsetting ONLY once any available reductions have been made. Projects completed in the tool during 2022 range from 1.5 Kg to almost 130 metric tonnes CO2e. The average project size from 2022’s data was 4.7 metric tonnes CO2e, although for projects with a budget of £50,000+ per shoot day the average was 12.7 metric tonnes CO2e. Generally speaking carbon follows cost – a large scale production will likely have a larger footprint.
You can of course use the calculator to do a rough estimate when you’re budgeting a job – the calculator will give you an offset cost as well as a total co2e amount, as soon as you add the first activity.
It will be up to the advertiser if they wish to pay for this (and whether they do it directly or via their Principal Production Partner or Third Party Production Partner), and whether they use AdGreen’s offset partner (Ecologi) or not
Carbon offsetting with Ecologi is optional. You can use your own offsetting company if you prefer.
The calculator is free at the point of use. AdGreen is funded by a 0.25% levy on production spend, find out more about the AdGreen levy on the about us page.
The core calculator of the tool, including all of it’s inputs, formulas and factors, is exactly the same as albert’s. You can read their methodology above.
As a post house, unless you also work on productions in your own right, there is no need for you to have an account as the contributor companies will input the information for the items in their respective budgets, including time spent in post-production spaces.
An average emissions intensity is used as we take a market based approached to accounting for renewable energy.
Contributor companies will input the information for the items in their respective budgets, including equipment mileage, number of catering heads and studio power units. Get in touch with your regular clients to see what data you will need to provide on your invoices so that they can complete their footprints more easily.
The calculator covers any collection of activities resulting in motion, stills or audio content, which is to be used for advertising purposes, no matter the media it will be used on.
Music videos advertise the artists who have produced the music so they would go into the calculator. You will need to ask the record company to register as the ‘brand’.
The calculator it’s for motion, stills and audio projects only. For events, we’d recommend getting in touch with our friends at Isla and checking out their TRACE carbon calculator.
You cannot measure the impact of media in the calculator, we would recommend checking out the IPA’s Media Climate Charter for details of their tool.
BAFTA’s albert is the home of environmental sustainability for film and TV. You can calculate the carbon footprint of your long-form work for broadcast with them, free of charge.
To get started please see our resources guides, which cover everything from how to videos, terminology we use and what to include and exclude. You can also check out our bite size walkthrough.
Each company who requests a new account is set up by our small team. We will respond to your request as soon as possible. Or get in touch with us at calculator@weareadgreen.org.
Enter your email here and if you’re registered to use the tool you will get a reset link. Let us know if it doesn’t come through as you might not be registered. Please also check your junk mail – sometimes they go there!
The PPP is whoever is working directly with the client and will be billing them for the majority of the production costs. In most cases the PPP will be an advertising agency, and the TPPP will be a production company.
If you are working directly with the client you are the PPP and should set up the campaign and project(s) within it.
Ideally the advertising agency registers and then sets up a campaign and project. We understand each company is on their own journey with regards to production sustainability and there are some who are much further ahead than others. If it appears that they won’t be registering in time, then please go ahead and create the campaign.
Ideally all parties register to use the tool and enter activities as per their budget. We understand each company is on their own journey with regards to production sustainability and there are some who are not as far ahead as others. If it appears that they won’t be registering in time, then please enter their activities if you are able to obtain enough information to do so.
The easiest way to do this is to create a campaign as normal, and then create 3 projects with the same attributes as needed. One TPPP should be added to each of the projects, and the TPPP should then add the activities in line with their bid/budget. For a full picture, the PPP should also add their activities as relevant to the bid. Only the winning project (bid) should be sent to AdGreen for review, once completed. The other projects can remain ‘In Progress’, or be deleted.
This means the company is not yet registered to use the tool. You can invite them to join you and start the registration process via the calculator.
If you have searched for the brand and you can’t find them listed, then you can create them as a ‘ghost brand’ (no admin/users attached). Don’t forgot to reach out to your brand contact via the tool.
Once a project has been submitted for review, the AdGreen team will perform a number of sense checks:
- Getting a sense of the project by looking over the attributes provided e.g. number of shoot days, budget etc – this gives an idea of what kind of things we should expect to see and from which contributor company
- Looking at each activity area in relation to the project details, to see if there are any activities we think might be missing, or there that we wouldn’t expect, or activities that feel too low or too high against our internal benchmarks
- Looking at the detail of each activity to see if data has been input correctly
After the review is done, we’ll add any messages for the contributors and mark the project as either ‘Complete’, or ‘Amendments Needed’. The contributor companies who need to make amendments will then receive an email notification. After the amendments are made by the relevant parties, the project can be resubmitted for review.
In both of these cases, the following people will get notifications:
- The individual user who created the project
- Individual users who have been invited to the project from the PPP and TPPP(s)
- Other admins at the PPP who did not create the project (N.B. they can still see the project on login, as they can see all projects for their company)
- Other admins at the TPPP who are not invited to the project (N.B. they can still see the project on login, as they can see all projects for their company)
- Relevant admin/users of the reviewer companies, such as the brand and production consultancies
At present, the following people to do not get notifications:
- Individual users at the PPP and TPPP(s) who are not invited to the specific project
- Individual users at any of the reviewer companies assigned to the project (N.B. they can still see the project on login, as they can see all projects their company is assigned to)
When amendments are requested, the AdGreen team will indicate in the tool which parties need to make the amendments. Notifications are then sent to the relevant people at the PPP (as per above question) as standard for their reference, and if applicable, to the relevant people at the TPPP too (again as per above question). Individual users at any of the reviewer companies assigned to the project are not sent a notification.
We recommend that company admins manage users, and if users leave the company, their account is deleted. All of the information they have entered will remain in the calculator and be assigned to the longest standing admin. If you have freelance production staff who work with you regularly, you may like to keep their account active.
The calculator and everything that AdGreen provides is for the advertising production community and advertisers.
All of the admins at your company will automatically have an overview of the campaign/project and it will remain visible to them after you have finished your contract, even if you or an admin deletes your account. You can also invite other calculator users from your team to the campaign/project before you leave, if you want them to have an overview after you’ve left.
We recommend filling in the calculator as early in the production as possible in order to complete the footprint before contracts end. If there are only a few items which need to be entered following completion it should only take a few minutes, and could perhaps be accommodated by the TPPP during this learning stage of using the calculator. Alternatively, you can estimate the items based on your own knowledge of the work completed and enter them in to your own part of the footprint.
For more information on entering activity information see here – How to input activities.
If you would like to show the reductions that were made, we would recommend creating two projects, one in the way it would have been done and how it was actually done.