Creating a sustainable video production company

We've decided to exclusively help the niche market of B Corps, sustainable businesses and non-profits, which meant, it was our turn to become sustainable ourselves. The first recommendation would be to start the B Corp application earlier than when you’re planning to become a B Corp. This is especially important starting out early because it will help set guidelines and processes early on and will save you from having to make costly changes later. There are a lot of paperwork to be done and it will take months before being an official B Corp. If you want to get the application started, head over to: https://bcorporation.com.au/ and speak to someone about your plans to becoming a B Corp. We’re currently still in the application phase and hoping to be B Corp certified by end of 2022.

Once you’ve started your application, let’s get into the details of what you can do day to day as the producer to help your team set a standard for other video production companies. You need to set out rules for your production team, since most production companies including ours, expands the team with contractors depending on the scope of work. Before you recruit contractors and other freelancers, they would need to read or watch a video regarding the on set production rules.

Here’s a basic guideline rules we have at Nutshell Films:

1. Bring your own reusable water bottle to set. No plastic bottles allowed on set.

2. Bring a Keep Cup for multiple coffee runs.

3. Crew car pooling, to minimise cars - Contact the producer to see if a team member can pick you up.

4. Switch off all gear to preserve batteries during breaks.

5. All Pre-Production meetings to be held online.

At Nutshell Films, we always bring spare branded reusable water bottles and Keep Cups just in case a crew member forgets or doesn’t have one. It also promote them to do the same if hired for other gigs.

We have a few more perks at Nutshell Films such as, all employees encouraged to work from home and only come out to set during productions. Interacting with one another through Slack chat and Google Meets. We also give you a paid free leave day every Wednesday, making it a 4 day work week for all employees, giving flexibility for our team mates to do personal things mid week. This reduces stress, increases productivity, which adds that little more to becoming a sustainable video production company.

We’ve also invested in a production van with a large battery and solar panel to charge all of our equipment, so our energy needs are off the grid and clean.

We still have a long ways to go, but starting small, by just having rules could be the start you just need to becoming a more sustainable video production company.