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We aim to provide the world class services and programmes the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ is renowned for while doing everything we can to keep our environmental impact to a minimum.

Environmental and sustainability issues have long been reflected in the content we make and broadcast, so it’s important to us that they are also embedded in the way we operate and run the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳.

We can’t enhance our audiences’ understanding of climate change and what’s needed to transition to Net Zero unless we are also working on the solutions to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions within our own industry. As a publicly funded organisation, we understand that we have a particular responsibility in this area.

Reducing the environmental impact of our programmes

It is a priority to ensure that programme-making, which is at the core of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳, is environmentally sustainable. From first draft to final transmission, we are continually exploring and implementing ways to lower the carbon emissions generated by our output, but crucially without affecting its quality. This means tackling practical, day-to-day challenges and spreading sustainable values throughout the production supply chain. 

The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ continues to play an active and prominent role in the collaborative pan-industry , of which it is a founder member, having gifted the albert carbon calculator to Bafta over a decade ago. The aims of the Consortium are to reduce the negative environmental impacts arising from TV production and promote positive action to tackle climate change behind the camera as well as showcasing it on screen.

The albert online tools

The BAFTA albert Consortium provides the global TV industry with online tools to both measure the carbon footprint of making programmes and to engage production teams with greener ways of working.

The  has been used by more than 2300 production companies and 150 broadcasters in 48 countries around the world.  Use of the albert carbon calculator is an essential requirement of albert certification,  which is a broader online tracking system used to monitor sustainability initiatives instigated by production teams.  Once evidence has been provided for their pledges, productions are rewarded with the albert logo to use on their end credits, in recognition of their greener working practices.  

To ensure sustainability is baked into every production, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ has made albert certification mandatory for all TV commissions from January 2022.  More information can be found on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Commissioning website.

So how are ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ productions doing?

As detailed in our latest , these are the performance figures for commissioned ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ TV content in scope for albert for the last financial year:

• 100% of all output completed a carbon footprint.
• 97% of output commissioned since January 2022 completed sustainable production certification, which is mandatory.
• 97% of all output, commissioned at any time, completed sustainable production certification.

Portraying sustainability on-screen

When it comes to the content our audiences watch, listen and read, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ needs to ensure that it’s reflecting the changes we’re seeing in society towards more sustainable ways of living. We have a responsibility to help our audiences understand the impact of climate change and the steps we can take to transition to Net Zero.

Before we commission any programme, a formal conversation takes place about how environmental concerns can be appropriately and authentically considered or reflected in the editorial content of the project. This encompasses the mindful choices that can be made around sustainable settings or behaviours on screen, as well as the subjects or themes of a production where relevant.

Our Planet Now is the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳’s ongoing commitment to programming which explicitly explores the environment and the challenges facing the natural world. Further information can be found on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳’s dedicated and there are also Our Planet Now collections on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer and ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sounds.

Delivering on the Climate Content Pledge

In November 2021, at COP26, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ was one of 12 broadcasters and streamers to sign the , committing us to doing more and better climate story-telling on screen across all genres..

Building on our unrivalled reach within the UK, and informing audiences globally

We are committed to reaching the widest possible audience with climate and environmental themes, putting them at the heart of our biggest entertainment shows, our incisive global journalism, our inspiring content for children, and with a continued focus on producing outstanding world-renowned Natural History series.

In 2023/24, non-News TV and Radio content which prominently contained explicit environmental themes reached approximately 64% of the 16+ UK population. We will continue to measure ourselves against this metric, and report against it in our Annual Report.

Environmental blockbuster Planet Earth III reached 26.5 million people across all its ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ showings in the UK. To highlight the power of nature focused conversations, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ launched Become a Voice for Nature, with a host of famous names voicing key moments from the series and inviting audiences to do the same, achieving over 2.5 million plays on social media. ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Studios partnered with Minecraft Education on a themed world in 29 languages, highlighting the importance of conserving habitats and ecosystems.

Wildlife cameraman and presenter Hamza Yassin shared his passion for birds of prey on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One, with Hamza: Strictly Birds of Prey, which reached over seven million people across all its ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ showings in the UK. Let it Grow blossomed on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 2, whilst Max Richter Live: Earth Day 2023, recorded as a celebration of nature in Mile End Park, brought the local East London community together with ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 3 audiences.

Showcasing solutions was a theme, with The World Service’s 100 Women highlighting 28 climate pioneers; ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sport’s Green Sport Awards; The One Show’s Growing Together Award for Community Gardening in partnership with the RHS; and The Earthshot Prize. Celebration was balanced by accountability, with Panorama: Why are we still searching for fossil fuels? and Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt’s dramatic exposé of UAE plans to use the COP28 climate talks to make oil deals.

Our commitment to light-touch, authentic and audience-relevant ways to incorporate sustainability into our biggest titles remains, from featuring plant-based dishes in the Great British Menu to tasks around ‘green growth’ in The Apprentice. Across our output we continue to deliver on the Climate Content Pledge and are piloting the Journalism Climate Commitment.

We also track the impact of our environmental content from the perspective of our key stakeholders, our audience. This has revealed that claimed understanding of key terms like ‘net zero’ soared after COP26, when the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ embedded relevant content across genres, from Daytime to Comedy, with 51% of UK adults saying the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ increased their understanding of environmental issues. More than 80% of viewers said their concern about climate change grew after watching Frozen Planet II, with 61% reporting subsequently engaging in at least one pro-environmental behaviour, such as reducing energy use.

Embedding a consideration of climate themes in all our processes

A mandatory question on how productions are considering the environment and sustainability in their editorial was included in our television commissioning process in December 2020. In 2022, we aligned our Radio commissioning processes, so that they too incorporate a consideration of environmental themes.

An inclusion of a question isn’t enough though – we have been working to ensure that these are meaningful conversations by engaging, educating and inspiring internal editorial teams and external suppliers, through:

• Implementing our commitment to train 100% of public service non-News editorial staff. We have delivered in-depth training to over 1600 colleagues since COP26, between December 2021 and June 2023.
• Holding monthly internal meetings to share insights, best practice and learnings, as well as foster collaboration, between senior editorial leaders across our output and platforms.
• Revamping our TV and Radio Commissioning sites with bespoke insights and tips on incorporating sustainability in editorial.
• Holding and participating in multiple internal and external masterclasses and events to upskill editorial colleagues, including Climate Creatives, one day ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Academy virtual festivals held annually from 2021, open to the entire industry. These include external speakers, briefing sessions from expert climate communicators, postcard films and a message from Director General, Tim Davie.

We are committed to continuing to engage, educate and inform staff and suppliers on the topic.

Ensuring our efforts are informed by the science

Apart from science-based Masterclasses, we have published an for staff and suppliers. This pulls together, in one place and in layman’s terms, the current state of scientific knowledge, to give non-specialists confidence in creating content in this area.

Collaboration and Communication

We are working together with other UK broadcasters, bodies and industry groups including Bafta albert, the Responsible Media Forum, PACT and OKRE, to better understand our impact and create industry wide knowledge on the best ways to inspire and engage audiences.

Net Zero and reducing our operational impact

We recognise that as a large organisation we have a responsibility to reduce our GHG emissions in line with 1.5 degrees of global warming and to reduce our wider environmental impacts.  We are committed to pursuing a target driven approach as outlined in our .

In October 2021 we set (SBTs) for the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Group to cut our GHG emissions to Net Zero (NZ), which was followed by a commitment to the new SBTi NZ standard which will require setting Long Term Science Based Targets for approval by the SBTi. As part of this alignment to the new NZ standard, we will also be reviewing and updating our offset strategy. The details of our SBTs, set against our baseline GHG emissions for 2019/20, together with details of how we calculate and report on this data, are available on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Environmental Sustainability website. Our performance against environmental targets is also published in the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Annual Report and Accounts.

We will continue to buy electricity on a renewable tariff for our UK buildings, while monitoring systems in our main properties allow us to identify anomalies in energy consumption and to operate our technology as effectively and efficiently as we can.

We are also transitioning our vehicle fleet to entirely electric by 2030.

We have a Zero Waste to Landfill target, which we will aim to have certified by The Carbon Trust. We’ve published a statement of intent to eliminate Single Use Plastic from ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Operations.

To tackle the 55% of our baseline emissions that come from the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳’s supply chain, we are focusing on engaging our suppliers with delivering change. We have a responsible procurement strategy, selecting and developing suppliers who share the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳’s objective of putting social, environmental and economic sustainability at the heart of how and what we buy. ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Group is also part of the Carbon Disclosure Project’s (CDP) supply chain solution, undertaking the project’s rating and disclosure process, together with over 400 ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Group suppliers. In 2024, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ was rated B for climate strategy maturity by CDP which is an improvement on previous assessments. Decarbonisation support webinars are being hosted by the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and CDP for suppliers and all ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Procurement contract managers are being provided sustainable procurement and carbon emission training.

Working with Microsoft, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ has also developed a GHG emissions reporting platform for all ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Group data. The platform will be the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳’s central database for GHG emissions reporting across all scopes and will provide performance dashboards to track progress against targets. In future it will also track our waste, water and bio-diversity data.

A Planet Positive Approach

The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳’s environmental impacts are not limited to its carbon emissions and so we hope to adopt a broader ‘planet positive’ strategy. We intend this to commit us to being both a net zero and nature positive organisation that will deliver ‘more good than harm’ to the planet.  This strategy will determine investment activity and partnership relationships that deliver nature positive outcomes.

We’ve joined the  working group and are aligning to the (TCND) framework, which is currently out for consultation.  We are also investigating methodologies to calculate our biodiversity footprint in order to measure our biodiversity net gain performance.  In addition, we will be determining deforestation, water and land use risks in our supply chain, using our CDP supply chain questionnaires.  Our data driven approach will be underpinned by scientific rigour.

Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures

Embedding sustainability throughout the organisation, in every business area, is crucial if we are to achieve all of our environmental goals. An essential part of that process is the adoption of the () Framework, to which the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Group is now a signatory.

This work includes climate scenario and financial impact analysis, the results of which are included in our .

Sustainable Culture

At the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ we understand the importance of increasing our employees’ knowledge of climate science and the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳’s environmental targets, and through bespoke workshops for teams and online training, we encourage them to share best practice in sustainable production and other green ways of working. Reflecting the particular responsibility we have to be guided by the science in our content, we are committed to training all editorial staff in the basics of climate change and the challenges facing our planet.

We offer both virtual trainer-led courses and remote online courses, which have been accessed by over 6,000 members of staff from different ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ departments across the UK and overseas. Staff engagement with environmental issues is also enhanced through internal communications campaigns and other online events and activities.