Pioneering Clean Energy at Netflix — and Across the Entertainment Industry

When you sit down on the couch to stream your latest show, climate change and the urgency of the energy transition may be far from your mind — even when the latest season of Love is Blind features RMI energy policy expert Taylor Krause.

But behind the scenes of your favorite movies and series, industry leaders are not only working hard to make your entertainment unforgettable —  but low carbon too.

Emma Stewart is the Sustainability Officer at Netflix, the world’s largest entertainment streaming service, where she is focused on reducing Netflix production emissions and on delivering cleaner technologies to set.

Netflix has partnered with RMI’s Third Derivative and partner The Walt Disney Co. as part of the Clean Mobile Power Initiative, a cross-industry effort to support the next generation of cleantech startups focusing on bringing clean mobile energy to film and TV production sets — solving the problem of diesel-fueled generators that bring dirty air, high emissions, and unwanted noise. Together, CMPI is working with 10 global manufacturers of battery energy-storage solutions, hydrogen power units, or hybridized systems.

On an RMI-hosted panel at Climate Week NYC in September, Stewart shared her take on Netflix’s clean energy journey, the challenges of decarbonizing the entertainment industry, and how RMI co-founder Amory Lovins inspires her thinking.

The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

When you arrived at Netflix, how was their sustainability approach?

Emma Stewart: So this might seem strange, but Netflix as a company had not analyzed its carbon footprint until 2020, when I joined. In the entertainment sector that was not all that anomalous. It’s a sector that has for almost 100 years operated largely the same way, focused, really on creativity and the creative process and bringing stories to your living room that thrill and entice and enthrall. How those were made was not really the focus, nor was it, frankly, the competitive advantage.

I started by bringing in practices and people from other sectors, many of which were more advanced than the entertainment sector in looking especially at decarbonization issues, the focus thus far had been on sorting the recycling out of the waste stream.

And yes, the making of film and television does generate waste, but it was almost like decarbonization was 10 years behind the curve when it came to how paramount climate as an issue had become. So we upended the model.

How did you upend the model? What did you end up doing? 

ES: We said, rather than focusing on waste, and rather than putting an eco steward on each set and asking them to personally sort through the waste streams, which is not the most empowering job, we’re instead going to start inducing change around the things that matter most: fuel and electricity.

And that was what our data showed us once we finally collected it in late 2020. It became clear to us that our big rocks to move were renewable energy, and then secondarily, electrification of transportation. Third, the elimination of diesel generators over time. And then lastly, that good old energy efficiency that RMI has rightly put at the center of the agenda and is all too often overlooked.

Tell us more about those “big rocks,” what did they tell you about what needed to change?

ES: Well, renewable energy is actually relatively plentiful, relatively on par for cost in most parts of the world. So for us, it was really more about opportunism in a given location, what was available through the grid, through the landlord, or maybe through direct investment.

When it came to electrification of vehicles, we modeled it out through our science-based target in 2030 and saw that this was going to be hard, but not impossible, and that the transportation sector was electrifying around us. It was hitting some ​​important tipping points, as Kingsmill Bond at RMI has pointed out so eloquently, and so for us, it was more about focusing on heavier-duty vehicles​.​​​

Next was mobile power. And here it just kind of felt like going back in time. The tradition was, even if there’s a grid tie-in, you just roll in those trusty diesel generators. You turn on three if you need one, and off you go.

The utilization of those generators is atrocious, typically used at a load of sub-20 percent, which meant that they are more likely to break down. So not only were cast and crew getting a mouthful of diesel fumes, but we are also wasting money. Plus [the generators] are high maintenance and, as you might imagine, they’re quite noisy — turns out that sound quality matters when you’re filming [Laughs].

So for all these reasons, we thought, well, how has this not been solved before? ​​And it turns out it is hard. So we went to RMI.

How did RMI come to mind for you?

ES: I work at a storytelling company, so I’ll tell you a story: I got to know [RMI co-founder] Amory Lovins when I worked at Autodesk. We actually had him come to our brand spanking new offices in San Francisco, and I’ll never forget the look on my CEO’s face when Amory was looking up at the ductwork and going ‘Oh gosh, that is definitely too curvy of a pipe, and those louvers should be angled that way,’ and my poor CEO was thinking, ‘I just spent a lot of money on this place’.

So I then got to go to Amory’s house and sit down in his kitchen and spend an entire day brainstorming how we could essentially package Amory’s brain into Autodesk design software.

And so when this challenge was presented to me by the team, there really wasn’t a question as to who to go to. And because RMI was already involved with the ​​Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance, where Netflix is a co-founder, they knew Netflix and our issues, and so it was really quite straightforward.

How hard was it to partner with the entertainment sector? 

ES: The entertainment sector is all in the same boat. We actually share not only crew, but infrastructure. We literally have a horizontal supply chain, so we’re all in it together. So why not just link arms?​

How did Netflix start bringing cleaner tech to sets? 

ES: One thing we as a company are doing is supporting our productions to integrate cleantech into their operations. So for all productions that Netflix manages, we plan for the clean tech rental premiums, and it’s built into the production budget, and you can’t touch it for anything but fuel-reducing clean tech. We know it saves on fuel costs, we know often it’s better operationally, so planning for the front costs of the equipment rental helps our productions get over that hurdle.

We also provide them with a regional sustainability advisor. They deeply understand that region, that production ecosystem, all the vendors in that region. And what they’re able to do is take learnings from production to production so that the adoption continues to increase, even with new producers and crews who haven’t used the tech before.

Being the pesky person who comes in to say, ‘Have you thought about clean technology?’ is not always welcome. Because these advisors are former producers, they can put themselves in the shoes of other producers who are very much sold around budget and schedule.

And so these folks can really understand how the operationalization and testing of these technologies can actually enhance a production. They bring down the noise pollution. They can minimize cabling —  because it can be closer to set, because you’re not pouring fumes over the craft services table. And that the LED lighting can minimize heat — which isn’t just exciting for HVAC engineers! It also benefits the cast in costume, because hot lights aren’t making them uncomfortable or melting their makeup.

So these are the sorts of things that they can point out where the business case is, and that’s been much needed.

What Netflix show are you watching right now? 

Is that a trick question? Of course I’m watching Love is Blind season seven, where RMI’s green hydrogen expert, Taylor Krause, makes her on-screen debut. But I won’t spoil it for you so I’ll say no more.