CASE STUDY: TANTRUM / LEO BURNETT / P&G'S FAIRY
Me looking rather thrilled with my new bin set up
Blog number two - I'm on a roll! After AdGreen success on Rice Krispies, I continued on at Tantrum for another month to PA a three day shoot on location for P&G’s “Heads, Shoulders, Knees & Toes” spot for Fairy.
First off, I spoke to our location manager Sarah Butler. She was really happy to use Quantum Waste for our recycling and food waste collection, so I created an account for Tantrum and got it booked it all in (more info on how you or your location manager can do this here). As Jo and Daisy discovered when they visited the plant, Quantum Waste sort all of the rubbish by hand and make sure that everything that can be recycled, gets recycled.
Next I talked to with Get Set Hire about location supplies as they'd just got these brilliant dual bins (see pic below), and they pre-labelled them with the AdGreen signage (print your own here) - time was tight and I asked very politely! You do need to make sure you have some clear bags - luckily Get Set Hire have those too, so don’t forget to add them when ordering the bins! Happily these bins and bags weren't breaking the bank either - taking away the fear that the greener way is going to be more expensive: a pop-up bin is £2 to hire, and a dual set is £4. Producer Will Waters loved getting (b)involved:
The next issue to tackle was the dreaded plastic bottle… I had asked Nomadic Kitchen to make sure that we had enough bottled water for crew to have one per day, which they were happy to do. I then ordered 2 water coolers, 2 x 19 litre water bottles per cooler, and 500 compostable cups, and stationed one cooler on set and one back at unit base. When calling all of the crew the night before the shoot, I emphasised all of the AdGreen measures we would be taking on set, and asked everyone to bring a water bottle, and if they had one, a reusable coffee cup or Thermos for hot drinks. On my way to set I stopped to get the papers; my heart sunk when I saw this front page…
Ugh. So depressing.
When I got to set, nearly everyone had brought a water bottle with them. I was, and still am, beaming with pride for my Fairy crew - check out Spencer Wilson going in for a casual refill in the above pic! Our caterers also provided us with Vegware plates and cutlery, and had our special bins situated at base by the tea table. I also have to give a special shout out to our unit base, Wasps RFC, who had their own recycling bins situated inside their buildings - way to go making our life easier!
Another problem that's a bit out of control is the amount of paperwork we print, which more often than not, ends up being binned. Again, I gave forewarning that we would print limited call sheets and schedules via the call sheet front page and email out the night before. As Daisy has been showing you in her case studies, we also had key paperwork on notice boards which everyone could refer to throughout the day - plus they all had digital copies anyway.
Wasps RFC's own beautiful bins
I felt really pleased with my first officially green shoot, however there's always more we can do. Team AdGreen has recently announced Five Easy Things in conjunction with their Green Production Get Together in March - I managed to cover some of these but I was frustrated that we couldn't ditch correx in favour of Ram Board. The recycled and recyclable material is SO MUCH BETTER than unrecycled and unrecyclable correx, however, it's a little more labour intensive to put down (it takes a bit of practice to get it down quickly) and is currently more expensive. Things like this need all of us to start using them in order to bring the cost down and get people used to working with the material. However, doing any of the Five Easy Things is certainly a step in a greener direction!
Throughout the shoot I had some lovely comments from the crew, saying how great they thought the AdGreen initiative is... being green needn’t be hard! It’s actually really rewarding when everyone does it together.
To help you on your shoot, check out our resources section, with tips for production teams, agency staff and crew. If you're UK based and working directly in production or creative, you can also attend one of our training sessions. Our FAQ section covers various topics from waste reduction to offsetting. If you'd like to help inspire others by sharing your innovative sustainable production solutions, get in touch. Just 3 or 4 points and a few images is enough for us to put together a case study.
