Article content

Hollywood North is big business for B.C., but so too is its carbon footprint.

Film and TV productions, on average, produce around 500 metric tonnes of CO2 per production, or the equivalent of 108 cars on the road for a year, according to one industry analyst.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Hollywood North faces huge environmental challenges Back to video

The industry faces enormous environmental challenges, everything from movie set waste, plastic food containers and water bottles, to micro plastics entering the ocean and atmosphere from fake snow and other special effects.

B.C. saw $3.6-billion worth of screen-based shows shot in the province during 2017-18, a 21-per-cent increase from the previous year, according to the Canadian Media Producers Association. Vancouver is the largest film and television production centre in Canada and the third in North America.

In B.C., there are at least 57 productions underway, including more than half a dozen Christmas movies.

That’s an estimated average of around 28,500 metric tonnes of CO2 being produced currently in B.C. by one industry, according to Zena Harris, president of Green Spark Group, a Vancouver-based sustainability consultant, which calculates the carbon footprint of the productions it works on.