Sustainability requirements

This page offers specific guidance on our sustainability requirements, what to submit and useful contacts. We have a range of additional resources and guidance to help producers achieve our commitments:

Requirements

It is a mandatory requirement for all new commissions and recommissions of TV broadcast content including all Nations, Children’s, Education, BBC Film and non-News related Sport content to:

1. Focus on minimising and reducing carbon emissions from energy and travel, including not using diesel/petrol in generators on UK–based shoots
2. Attain BAFTA Albert certification
3. Provide a company level sustainability policy
4. Submit an on-air sustainability form for each episode

There are some limited exemptions for BAFTA Albert certification. Find out more below.

Please note returning shows or series are expected to deliver lower carbon emissions than previous series.

Reducing carbon emissions from energy and travel

Energy and travel are two of the biggest drivers of carbon emissions. We ask all productions to actively reduce carbon emissions in these two areas, outline their intended measures to do so in the commissioning specification, and discuss them with their commissioner.

For UK-based shoots, generators at studios and diesel/petrol in generators should only be used when other power solutions are not viable, by prior agreement with the commissioner.

Productions should use energy efficiently and plug into the mains grid where possible, ideally supplied by 100% renewable sources. For temporary power, renewable, battery or hybrid options should be prioritised. Where generators are unavoidable, certified alternative fuels such as HVO (hydrotreated vegetable oil) should be used on UK shoots, and abroad where possible.

Find out more about how to reduce carbon emission from energy and travel and speak to your commissioner for further advice about opportunities and support to reduce emissions in this area.

BAFTA Albert certification

There are two core components to BAFTA Albert certification, both of which must be completed before the BAFTA Albert logo can be released:

1. Completing a BAFTA Albert carbon footprint to measure emissions
2. Certifying the production to reduce emissions and provide evidence of the actions taken

Both the carbon footprint and the certification route chosen should be discussed with the BBC commissioning representative as part of the commissioning process, and we encourage productions to include a line for insetting sustainability within the production budget.

We expect the senior members of a production team to lead on environmental sustainability.

Contact BAFTA Albert to set up a company account and logins for staff and see the resources section below for more information and useful contacts.

Once the production company has a BAFTA Albert account, one member of staff should be nominated as the main liaison for all things BAFTA Albert. This person should be supported by the production’s finance team. We expect a senior member of a production team to take overall responsibility for both production delivery and editorial decision making (e.g. executive producer).

Note BAFTA Albert will not penalise producers for the following:

• A lack of facilities or other restrictions in a particular location where a production or company is based.
• Scenarios where clear barriers to emission reduction measures are the responsibility of others (or resolving these barriers would be part of a bigger infrastructure change).

In these cases, certification will not automatically be withheld. Instead, where the sustainable action is mandatory, evidence will be sought to demonstrate the producer has taken all measures that are reasonably within their control to address the barrier.

The BAFTA Albert Next Generation Toolkit

From 16 September the BAFTA Albert Next Generation (Next Gen) Toolkit should be used to certify all new productions. This is a web-based carbon emissions tracking platform that provides comprehensive forecasting, measurement and reporting, actionable decarbonisation insights, and certification for sustainable productions.

As part of these changes, the carbon action plan (CAP) has been replaced with a new certification process, with one certification route for standard productions ('certified') and a separate route for fast turnaround shows ('committed'). For both routes, the certification approach is based on evidence and weighted scoring, placing greater emphasis on demonstrated outcomes and measurable emissions reductions.

Additionally, footprint emissions reporting is now structured around Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions.

The new Next Gen Toolkit includes:

• Sustainable production guides per department with checklists and templates to help plan, implement, and pass certification
• A newly designed carbon calculator to complete the carbon footprint
• An excel based carbon footprint data tracker (Excel) to streamline the BAFTA Albert carbon footprint process and help teams collect footprint data throughout production and upload directly to the carbon calculator

All productions using the previous BAFTA Albert system, must have fully completed their footprint and carbon action plan by 1 December 2026. Productions that have not completed the previous certification process by this date, will need to reapply for certification in the Next Gen Toolkit to receive the BAFTA Albert logo. Early preparation will be essential for productions scheduled to complete certification before December 2026.

Data or information has not been automatically migrated from the current BAFTA Albert Toolkit and productions must ensure any data they wish to keep a record of is downloaded and saved separately before 17 December. Existing BAFTA Albert user accounts have carried over, using the same login details and BAFTA Albert support will continue.

Next Generation Toolkit resources:

Completing the carbon footprint form

The BAFTA Albert carbon footprint is the first stage of gaining BAFTA Albert certification, and is created using the BAFTA Albert carbon calculator. The Next Generation Toolkit includes a newly designed carbon calculator along with a carbon data tracker tool (Excel) which allows teams to collect data throughout production and upload it directly to the calculator. 

The footprint requires the production to account for the carbon created by anything the production pays for, such as a production’s travel, accommodation, energy use in studios or on location, staffing and time in post-production.

Wherever possible, activity data should be used instead of spend data, as it provides a more accurate measure of emissions. This includes information such as litres of fuel consumed, room nights booked and kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy used.

We strongly recommend the involvement of finance teams in the BAFTA Albert process. Carbon can be tagged against the productions financial budget, to make it easier to keep track of data. Ask suppliers to provide itemised invoices, splitting out key categories such as litres of fuel used from hire costs of generators. 

Please ensure the correct programme UID is added to the 'production code' field on the production details page when registering the programme/series. If there is more than one programme use the first UID.

Submitting the carbon footprint

The completed carbon footprint form must be checked and approved by the production company’s nominated BAFTA Albert reviewer for accuracy.

Production teams will review and approve their own production footprint before it’s finalised. Before submitting the final footprint to BAFTA Albert, the data should be validated against production accounts to ensure all goods and services paid for by the production have been accounted for.

Once the footprint has been approved, the nominated BAFTA Albert reviewer for the production will receive an automated email from ‘ albert@bafta.org’ with 'Final carbon footprint has been approved' in the subject line.

It is then the production company’s responsibility to forward this email to their BBC delivery contact. This must be done within six weeks of the final episode delivery, and ideally at the point of delivery.

Certifying the production

BAFTA Albert certification is completed via one of two routes depending on the type of production:

• Certified route: the standard route for most productions
• Committed route: for fast turnaround productions

Criteria information below.

For both routes, the certification approach is based on evidence and weighted scoring, placing greater emphasis on demonstrated outcomes and measurable emissions reductions. The Pass mark for certification both routes is 55% overall.

Productions should retain evidence for all certification questions throughout the production shoot, rather than waiting until the end of production. Maintaining evidence as your production progresses will help ensure a smoother certification process and reduce the risk of delays. We recommend that productions set up a shared ‘green evidence folder’ which can be accessed by the whole production team. All evidence can then be uploaded in one place by the different members of the team, reducing the burden of gathering any outstanding information at the end of production, which can often be hard to find retrospectively.

For every question, the points available and the evidence expected are published up front. Certification assessors request evidence proportionate to production size and type, selected at assessment, after submission. You will not be told in advance which questions to evidence. Gather dated, production-specific evidence as you go, across all areas.

The sustainable production guide has checklists and templates to help plan, implement, and pass certification.

Certification routes

Certified route:

The standard route. For productions transmitting after filming has finished.

• Can be applied for one month before the shoot ends
• Standard route for most productions
• Certification based on evidence of actions delivered during production
• 21 questions across four sections
• BAFTA Albert request evidence for a route-specific sample of criteria.

Committed route:

The route for productions with fast turnaround times, needing the BAFTA Albert endboard before transmission, including live, news, sport and continuous programming.

• Apply from the start of pre-production
• Certification based on plans, policies and processes, not completed actions
• 14 questions across four sections
• A signed Code of Practice required from the executive producer (Indies)/ head of production (in-house) or the most senior team with responsibility for both production delivery and editorial decision making
• BAFTA Albert request evidence for a route-specific sample of criteria.
  

Please note, BAFTA Albert/ the BBC does not certify productions that use domestic flights within mainland UK, unless under exceptional circumstances. Exceptional circumstances include medical emergencies, child safeguarding issues and unavoidable disruptions to alternative transport such as strikes or extreme weather. Journeys where the train travel alone would have exceeded 6.5 hours can also qualify for exemption. Where a production believes it may be impossible to deliver a project without the use of domestic flights this should be discussed with the commissioner as soon as possible. Read BAFTA Albert's domestic flight guidance (pdf).

Gaining certification and the BAFTA Albert logo’s

Once your production has been approved for certification from BAFTA Albert – one of either the Certified or Committed production marks will be sent to your production team to use on your credits.

Productions completing on the current toolkit method will receive the old footprint logo. Completions via the new routes will receive one of the new BAFTA Albert marks.

Please see the end card page for BAFTA Albert logo positioning.

Productions must forward the BAFTA Albert certification confirmation email to their their BBC delivery contactwithin six weeks of final episode delivery.

On-air sustainability form

All new commissions must complete an on-air sustainability form for each episode via the Silvermouse production reporting system. A helpcard for completing the form is available on the BBC Academy website.

Forms must be completed and submitted via Silvermouse within four weeks of the final episode delivery.

To complete the form, producers select from a checklist of topics related to climate change, sustainability, nature-loss and our connection to the natural world and whether they are included in a programme verbally, in dialogue or commentary, or visibly in props, backgrounds or non-verbal action. The checklist of topics is below.

Completing the form will be significantly faster if the information is captured during production and editing and we recommend a senior member of the production familiar with the editorial of the finished programme is responsible for doing this.

It is a mandatory part of the commissioning process for producers to discuss with their commissioning editor whether there are opportunities to authentically include sustainable or environmental themes in their programme editorial. This conversation is recorded in the programme commissioning specification and referring to the topic checklist at this initial stage will make the form easier to complete at the end.

To facilitate this, below is the checklist of themes producers must track visual or verbal on-air references to and a download of all the questions for use as a prompt.

The checklist of topics

a) The science of climate change and/or nature loss and how these changes impact us/the natural world

b) How we try to protect ourselves from and adapt to the changes brought about by climate change and nature loss

c) How we travel and move around more sustainably

d) How we use energy and power in our lives, homes and industry more sustainably

e) What food we eat and how we use land more sustainably or restore nature

f) How we use materials and resources more sustainably and avoid or reduce waste

g) How we invest money, run businesses and economies more sustainably

h) Individuals, communities, creatives or artists imagining, discussing, making efforts or demands for a more sustainable world

i) How we can enhance our personal connection with nature

j) Industries and behaviours that are causes of climate change and nature loss

k) Celebrities, influencers or public figures endorsing or being role models for ‘green’ behaviours or attitudes

l) Other (please specify) 

Company sustainability policy

We ask all production companies to have a sustainability policy in place. This should be added to a programme’s commissioning specification.

Additionally, the SME Climate Hub also has guidance aimed at small and medium sized media and entertainment companies on the key areas a policy should address and how to tackle them.

Larger companies might find it useful to look at the BBC’s own three pillar sustainability strategy of Net Zero, People Positive and Nature Positive.

At a minimum we expect the policy to identify opportunities to reduce carbon emissions across a company’s operations and supply chain, share learnings and best practice across productions, and work towards the ability to measure at least some of their corporate carbon footprint. A company level approach should support use of the BAFTA Albert toolkit at production level and accelerate production decarbonisation.

In addition, we strongly encourage suppliers to report their company level carbon footprints annually, through tools such as those from the SME Climate Hub or CDP websites, and set targets to reduce them. We will follow up directly with those suppliers with whom we have the most significant annual spend.

Offsetting

Productions are not required to offset their emissions but are strongly encouraged to include a specific line for sustainability in their budgets. At a minimum this should be the amount that would be needed to offset the production’s carbon footprint (at a rate of £10.50 p/t of CO2e).

Find ideas and advice about budgeting for sustainability.

Exemptions

For BAFTA Albert certification, we understand that each production is unique and what can be delivered in terms of sustainability will vary. The nature of individual titles, the location and size of the company and the surrounding production infrastructure will all affect the availability and viability of certain actions. The below is a rough guide to exemptions:

• Where the total programme rights license fee (PRLF) for the entire project (all episodes) is £50,000 or less
• Where the PRLF is over £50,000 but the total, aggregated duration of the programmes or entire series is under 15 minutes
• Acquisitions
• Programmes made entirely from archive footage and reversions involving post-production only, with no specially shot material
• Co-productions where the BBC is a minority funder (providing less than 50% of the budget): certification is encouraged but not mandatory
• Foreign based indies: are encouraged to use BAFTA Albert or an equivalent local scheme if available in their territory, but certification is not mandatory
  
• Fast-turnaround: the committed route in the Next Generation Toolkit has been specifically designed to support these types of production schedules. In exceptional circumstances where production timelines do not allow certification to be completed within BAFTA Albert's turnaround periods, programmes may still qualify for an exemption. If you are unsure about whether your production qualifies for an exemption, please reach out to the BBC's Sustainability team

Programmes which are exempt from completing BAFTA Albert certification at the point of commission maintain their exemption, even if they subsequently fulfil the criteria for mandatory certification (for example by extending their length), as certification cannot be applied for retrospectively. For that reason, BAFTA’s Albert advisors certify each production on a title-by-title basis according to how the company have delivered on that specific title. This will be based on the producer influencing outcomes where they can and making the strongest sustainability choices possible, but understanding that ultimately there may be limitations that are outside of the producer’s control.

Acquired programmes do not need to achieve BAFTA Albert certification or submit on-air sustainability forms. 

Contacts

Training

The BAFTA Albert Consortium offers free training covering the big picture of climate change, what it means for the TV industry and what individuals can do to make a difference. Book a place via the BAFTA Albert website. 

The ScreenSkills online course Introduction to sustainability for the screen industries provides a good overview and role specific guidance.

Resources

Please note the BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites.