Sustainability Leadership: Lessons from the Field

A Green Spark Group Survey Report | 2025

Sustainability in film and television is often talked about as a logistics challenge, clean tech, the right bins, the right vendors, a list of best practices. But how do we get to those conversations in the first place? What determines whether a production even tries?

In late 2025, Green Spark Group surveyed film and television professionals to explore the leadership qualities that influence sustainable decision-making, asking them to recall real situations where sustainability worked, and where it didn't.

The core finding: Whether sustainability takes root in a production isn't about the equipment, the budget, or the diversion bin system. It's about leadership, practiced in a relational, values-forward manner, across all departments, and showing up in surprising and meaningful ways.

Who We Heard From

The respondents represent a broad cross-section of the screen industry's sustainability ecosystem. Roles ranged from sustainability PAs and eco-managers to executive directors, studio production sustainability leads, rigging gaffers, and production designers. Nearly half were based in Canada (48%), with a significant US contingent and additional voices from Slovakia, Turkey, Argentina, and the UK.

The majority were working directly on productions at the time of the survey - crew members, department leads, and set-level practitioners - with others based in corporate offices, production services companies, governmental organizations, and consulting practices. This ground-level composition matters. These findings come overwhelmingly from people who are in the room where sustainability decisions get made, or don't.

We asked them to recall real situations, one where sustainability worked, and one where it didn't, and to tell us exactly what leadership looked like in each.

What they told us was candid, specific, and consistent.

When Sustainability Works

Respondents were asked to think of a specific project where sustainability was effectively integrated, then identify the five leadership qualities most responsible for success. The results were clear and consistent.

Collaboration came first, cited by more than half of respondents. Creative problem-solving, clear communication, leading by example, and vision and purpose rounded out the top five, followed closely by consistency between words and actions, respect for all roles and contributions, and empowerment of others.

Read together, these qualities describe a relational, values-forward style of leadership. Sustainability doesn't get embedded in a production because someone mandated it in a policy memo. This reinforces the idea that it takes hold when leaders communicate why it matters, when they model the behavior themselves, and when they create the conditions for everyone around them to contribute.

The stories respondents shared bear this out. One described a sustainability coordinator who was "always visible and taking time to speak with everyone, she listened to their ideas and shared ideas on how to make something happen." Another recalled a production where a streamer exec producer "practiced what she preached": the production office used compostables, signage encouraged water bottle refills, and crafty was directed to offer healthier options. The result was that "departments felt safe taking certain risks", and they did.

Several respondents pointed to early engagement as the decisive factor. One described a situation where early trust-building and credibility allowed a production to hire a hydrogen power unit, a first for the project, because the sustainability team had earned confidence that they could "spec and predict cost effectively." The win wasn't just environmental. It was relational.

Another respondent offered perhaps the most expansive articulation of what values-driven leadership actually looks like in practice:

"A leader who TRULY cares about environmental sustainability is someone who thinks of the whole picture, the whole time. Not just the optics, or the incentives. You have to be able to think of all of the individuals working on the project as individual people. You have to think of the earth as a contributing factor. When people are thinking of the ecosystem, the whole environment becomes gentler, more understanding and collaborative."

This is not soft idealism. It's a practical description of the conditions under which people go above and beyond, and when it comes to sustainability on a production, going above and beyond is exactly what's required.

When Sustainability Breaks Down

The failure side of the survey is just as instructive and just as consistent.

Resistance to change dominated; cited by nearly three-quarters of respondents as the primary leadership failure when sustainability fell apart on a project. Focus solely on cost or speed, indifference to environmental or social impacts, top-down control with no collaboration, and short-term thinking rounded out the top five.

These are not resource failures, they are orientation failures. A production that treats sustainability as a cost to be minimized rather than a value to be embedded will behave accordingly, and crew members notice.

The qualitative responses on the failure side were, frankly, vivid. One respondent described an eco coordinator who arrived on a production only to discover the sustainability budget had already been "spent" before a single purchase was made, with costs and expectations never properly communicated between the service company and producers, leaving the coordinator as "just the middle man." Another described an indie film where the exec producers dismissed any idea with a cost premium, refused to involve departments in the conversation, and instructed the sustainability advisor not to talk to department heads. Territorial department leads, a scarcity mindset, and leadership that wasn't "modeling a values-oriented approach" meant sustainability was a non-starter.

A civil servant respondent wrote bluntly:

"In a conservative state in the USA, sustainability goals were not only absent from my workplace but were something targeted as adverse to leadership's personal and professional ethos."

And a coordinator on a large studio show captured the hollowness of performative compliance:

"Large show that did not have buy-in from the top. Only ticking boxes because required by studio."

The pattern across failure stories is strikingly consistent: sustainability that isn't embedded in leadership values doesn't survive contact with the production floor.

The Production Floor Is the Frontline for Both Outcomes

One of the more nuanced findings from the survey is that active productions are the site of both the most successes and the most failures. The majority of both positive and negative stories came from respondents working directly on set, crew, department heads, on-the-ground practitioners.

This dual finding deserves attention. The pressure of schedule and budget is greatest on an active production, and so is the potential for real, tangible sustainability impact. Corporate strategy and studio mandates matter. But the production floor is where intent, prior planning, and decisions upstream becomes practice or doesn't.

What the Industry Should Do: Straight from the Field

The survey's final question asked respondents to offer one piece of advice to leaders in the film and TV industry about embedding sustainability effectively. The answers were practical, sometimes impassioned, and worth reading in full aggregate. A few themes emerged strongly:

Start early, and fund it properly.

The most common piece of advice, in various forms: get sustainability onto a production during prep, give it a budget, and treat the sustainability role as a real department, not an afterthought. One respondent put it plainly: "Hire a person to work specifically in sustainability and treat them as if the job is a part of the crew." Another: "Get Sustainability onto a production as early as possible; give Sustainability a BUDGET!"

Lead by example, and mean it.

"Department heads need to lead by example" appeared in multiple forms across the responses. So did the corollary: don't set up systems and expect them to maintain themselves. "Continued innovation and attention is key."

Make it collective, not top-down.

Several respondents pushed back on the idea that sustainability can be mandated into existence: "Empower your team to collaborate on it, but the momentum has to be inspired and supported by passionate believers at the top." The distinction matters. Top-down commitment is necessary. Top-down control without collaboration is a failure pattern.

Communicate, and follow through.

"Communicate, mean it, collaborate, and actually follow through. In the interview, from the point of hire of every single crew member. Every department should know what green practices to apply or explore in their craft. Don't leave it all up to one to three people."

Look beyond carbon.

One respondent offered a pointed reminder: "Measure beyond carbon." The industry's sustainability conversation often narrows to emissions. The survey data, and the stories behind it, point to a much broader set of values: crew well-being, waste, material reuse, vendor relationships, systemic change.

And one respondent offered perhaps the most expansive framing of all:

"Sustainable Production is training for the world that is coming — whether you like it or not. Old business-as-usual is killing our planet — and limiting business opportunities by adding collateral costs everywhere. Insurance. Delays. Energy expense. All of it ultimately is eroding future profitability for film and TV — while protecting short-term profits."

What We Take Away

The 2025 Leadership & Sustainability in Film and TV Survey points toward a clear conclusion: the screen industries don't primarily need better sustainability policies. They need better sustainability leaders in all roles, up and down the content creation process.

The qualities that drive successful outcomes, collaboration, creative problem-solving, clear communication, leading by example, vision and purpose, are not exotic. They are learnable, practiceable, and teachable. The qualities most associated with failure, resistance to change, indifference to impact, short-term thinking, top-down control, are not inevitable. They are habits, choices, and orientations that can be named, challenged, and changed.

The professionals who took this survey know what good looks like. Many of them have built it themselves, sometimes in spite of the structures around them. The question for the industry is how to make those experiences the norm rather than the exception, to build environments in which sustainable, collaborative, values-driven leadership is expected, supported, and recognized at every level.

That work starts with leadership, systems thinking, and dare we say, courage.

Green Spark Group is a sustainability consulting firm serving the entertainment industry. This survey was conducted in late 2025 with film and television professionals across North America and internationally. If you're interested in leadership development, sustainability integration, or training for your production or organization, we'd love to hear from you.