Rick Crawford

In my opinion, when it comes to climate change, there are too many films are hyper-focused on the doomsday scenario, whereas Drop, a Spruce Park Productions film, presented by Patagonia and Protect Our Winters with support from Yeti and Orvis takes a different approach by following a drop of water from the top of the continental divide in Montana, across Idaho and Washington and eventually the Pacific Ocean, and instead focuses on the people working to solve the climate crisis in their own unique way. The result is a film that sends a clear message of hope, and if we are going to truly solve climate change, we not only need all hands-on deck, but we need lots of imperfect activists willing to put forth their ideas and collaborating to solve a problem that affects each and every one of us. With that being said, I was lucky enough to be asked by Hilary Hutcheson and Liam Gallagher to play a small part in the film as Drop was produced by Hilary Hutcheson and directed by Liam Gallagher. Needless to say, I was stoked, so I booked my flight to Kalispell, MT from Charleston, SC. This got me thinking. What is the carbon footprint of a film that is about solving the climate crisis? Well, Liam and I decided to find out, but before I get too far ahead of myself, here’s how we are defining carbon neutral:

Carbon Neutral is defined by the World Resources Institute as “annual zero net anthropogenic (human caused or influenced CO2 emissions by a certain date. By definition, carbon neutrality means every ton of anthropogenic CO2 emitted is compensated with an equivalent amount of CO2 removed (e.g. via carbon sequestration)….”

So, how did Drop achieve carbon neutrality? In short, we calculated all of the travel of everyone in the film, the electricity usage from Liam’s home office for the editing of the film, the embodied carbon of the film equipment used to make the film, and finally, the carbon footprint of people streaming the film on YouTube (more on that below).

Methodology

The Drop Carbon Footprint is based in the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting Standard and is created as a reference for what we are including in the Carbon Footprint, which provides you with relevant, complete, consistent, transparent and accurate GHG inventory.

Spend-based method – Estimate emissions for goods and services by collecting data on the economic value of goods and services purchased and multiplying it by relevant secondary (e.g., industry average) emission factors (e.g., average emissions per monetary value of goods).

Organizational Boundary: We are taking a financial control approach, which assumes that your business has financial control over its operations and the ability to direct the financial and operating policies over these activities.

Operational Boundary: In order to set our operational boundaries, we must report our Scope 1 (direct emissions) and Scope 2 (indirect emissions) and are voluntarily reporting our Scope 3 (indirect emissions). For more information on see table below:

Drop Carbon Footprint

Below is a summary of Drop’s carbon footprint:

• SCOPE 1 GHG Emissions: 0.0 mtCO2e
• SCOPE 2 GHG Emissions: 0.2 mtCO2e
• SCOPE 3 GHG Emissions: 8.64 mtCO2e

• 1.1 Heating: Liam’s heating at his home is electric, so no emissions associated with Scope 1.
• 2.1 Electricity: Liam tallied the total kWh from his home’s energy usage for the duration of work on the film, then we took the home office square footage and used that as the percentage of his homes energy usage to calculate purchased electricity.
• 3.1 Purchased Goods & Services: We accounted for the embodied carbon of the camera, tripod, hard drives and lens purchased for film.
• 3.2 Capital Goods: Not applicable.
• 3.3 Fuel & Energy Related Activities: We accounted for all the travel associated with the people who travelled to be in the film (Jeremy Jones, Liam Gallagher, Hilary Hutcheson, Ebon Robinson, Dave McCoy and myself) including flights, rental cars, etc.
• 3.4 Inbound Shipments: Not material.
• 3.5 Waste Generated in Operations: Waste for the film essentially consisted of Clif bar wrappers, and deemed not material.
• 3.6 Business Travel: We accounted for all of Liam’s travel since it was his company’s carbon footprint.
• 3.7 Employee Commuting: Not applicable.
• 3.9 Shipments to Customers: Not applicable.
• 3.11 Use of Sold Products: We found a study that estimates “Video steaming requires 7.9 MJ of primary energy and emits 0.42 kg of CO₂(e) per viewing hour.” Based on this data (0.42 kg of CO2e per viewing hour), and the number of views of the Drop Earth Day Screening + Q&A with Hilary Hutcheson, Liam Gallagher, Dave McCoy and more, which at the time of writing this report, was 2,000 views, we estimated the carbon footprint to be 0.84 mtCO2e, and included this assumption in our carbon footprint. Of course, the carbon footprint of Drop will continue to rise as more people stream the film, so we will take a look at the number of views at the end of the year to see how much the carbon footprint of Drop has increased.

How Drop Achieved Carbon Neutrality

Before I explain how Drop went carbon neutral, I feel it’s also important to define carbon offsets:

Carbon Offsets: “An offset project is “a specific activity or set of activities intended to reduce GHG emissions, increase the storage of carbon, or enhance GHG removals from the atmosphere.” The project must be deemed additional; the resulting emissions reductions must be real, permanent, and verified; and credits (i.e, offsets) issued for verified emissions reductions must be enforceable.”

So, you are probably wondering, how did Drop go carbon neutral if its carbon footprint is 8.84 mtCO2e? In short, Liam purchased carbon offsets for Scope 1, 2 & 3 GHG emissions. Liam decided to purchase offsets from “The Giving Trees”, which “helps small communities plant trees to create a nature-based carbon removal system that helps train leaders and pull families out of poverty.” These offsets were purchased through the nonprofit, Cool Effect. This carbon offset project reduces GHG emissions, are additional, are verified and permanent. Below is an example of how “The Giving Trees” carbon offsets purchased reduce greenhouse gas emissions:

Project Type: Nature-based Removal

Carbon Standard: Verra

Vintage: 2015-2020

Additionality: There are no laws or regulations requiring TIST implementation and tree planting is not common practice, especially on agricultural lands. Without the sale of carbon offsets, the communities would not have the capital for tree planting or the organizational programs for implementation.

Permanence: This project requires active community engagement and local stakeholders demonstrate a higher commitment to the longevity of the trees. Although the risk of reversal, according to the project documentation, was calculated to be 2.5%, the non-permanence risk reversal toolset by the project standard requires a minimum risk rating of 10%. This approach is conservative and has been applied.

Site Visit: Africa, pending COVID-19; India, 2019

In summary, it’s kind of a funny thing to think that a film about the effects of climate change will have a growing carbon footprint by having people stream the film on YouTube. Especially since we know that the most important action we can to take to solve the climate crisis is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, according to the IPCC, we must halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and be carbon neutral by 2050 to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. My opinion is that the relatively small carbon footprint of Drop, is worth the climate impact if we can get one person or company to take action and work to achieve carbon neutrality.

You can watch Drop below, and stay tuned as we take a look back at the carbon footprint of Drop at the end of the year!

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Drop Carbon Footprint is calculated with the Fly Fishing Climate Alliance Carbon Measurement Tool and the Report was produced by Emerger Strategies.