Toward a Sustainable TV Industry: Measuring the Carbon Footprint Across The Entire Production Life Cycle

The carbon footprint of the television industry has remained largely unexplored. Most research to date has focused on production-related emissions, leaving crucial aspects of the process, such as marketing and distribution, largely unexamined. This article addresses this gap by developing a comprehensive, open-source Carbon calculator, designed to capture Carbon emissions across all stages of a production’s life cycle, namely: pre-production, production, post-production, marketing, and distribution/end of life; through five overarching emission categories: Travel and Transport, Material Use, Energy Use, Waste, and Broadcasting. The calculator was applied to Dutch case studies, particularly to three television programs within the Nederlandse Publieke Omroep (NPO): 3 op Reis (a travel documentary), Het Klokhuis (a children’s educational show), and BinnensteBuiten (a sustainability and lifestyle program). Results of these specific non-fiction TV series revealed that a television show’s carbon footprint, from pre-production to end of life, ranged from 251 to 374 tCO 2 e per season, or 1.6 to 7.8 tonnes per 30 minutes of broadcast. Across all cases, production and distribution were consistently the most carbon-intensive stages, with broadcasting and travel emerging as the main emission drivers. When scaled nationally, Dutch television production is estimated to generate at least 16,300 tCO 2 e annually, equivalent to the yearly energy use of approximately 8,140 Dutch households. Scenario modelling indicated that phasing out natural gas, adopting renewable electricity, and transitioning to electric vehicles could reduce emissions by an average of 13% across the production sector. The detailed calculations for each television program, reduction strategies and future research are also presented.