Hollywood thinks green

The Producers Guild of America is launching an expanded version of its Green Production Guide, an interactive website that provides tools to help operate productions that are more sustainable.

The PGA guide, which debuted in August, 2010, will now offer additional resources to help producers run environmentally friendly productions. It gives access to a global database of over 1,500 vendors offering sustainable or environmentally sensitive services and products.

New or improved features include a refined search tool to find online green vendors; a graphically enhanced carbon calculator to quantify a production’s carbon emissions; and a new guide detailing best practices for sustainable production.

Several studios, including Disney, Fox, NBC Universal, Sony Pictures and Warner Bros. – all of which helped fund the initiative – use the carbon calculator on at least a portion of their productions.

Film commissions linking to the Green Production Guide on their sites include those in California, Louisiana, New York, New Jersey, Alabama, Florida, Indiana, New Hampshire, Oregon, Oklahoma, Ohio, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona, Maryland, Colorado, Maine, South Carolina, Nevada, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, and Georgia.

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Production house Hollywood Center Studios is also going green. The complex has built two large solar power systems that will generate more than 350,000 kilowatt hours per year of electricity for its 11 stages – helping reduce its electricity bill.

“We hope to slow electrical consumption, especially during peak hours, and that could have a significant effect on our energy costs,” said studio exec VP/COO Tim Mahoney. “Solar energy also appeals to the environmental concerns that we have-as well as many of the production companies that use our stages.”

More than 700 solar panels have been installed on the roofs covering Stages 10 and 11, the facility’s newest stages, and some 384 modules have been installed on the roofs of Stages Five and Six, the facility’s original stages. Hollywood Center Studios has plans to add similar systems to other stages and buildings.