FAQ Carbon’Clap
The Q&A provides answers to the mort frequently asked questions about Carbon’Clap.
Understanding the Carbon calculation tool
The Carbon’Clap was launched in 2012. Updated in 2023 to comply with the CNC certification, the tool has nearly 4000 user accounts. It measures the greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted by the production of an audiovisual, cinematic, or advertising work. It works for live-action projects (stream, fiction, documentary, recording, video, etc.): the “typology” dropdown menu in the project configurator allows specifying the project type.
Users enter in the tool physical (km traveled, liters of fuel oil, kWh of electricity, …) and monetary data (from the production budget). The Carbon’Clap associates them with emission factors: each activity corresponds to a carbon weight equivalent (CO2e). This allows evaluating the carbon footprint of the production but also identifying the highest emitting posts to steer its GHG emission reduction strategy.
The Carbon’Clap, as well as all ECOPROD tools, are available for free on our website. These tools are intended for all audiovisual professionals wishing to implement eco-responsible practices in their productions.
The Carbon’Clap is part of a broader work methodology with online resources, including the ECOPROD Label reference framework and The green production Guide, which allow developing and evaluating your green production strategy more broadly – not limiting to only greenhouse gas emissions.
Registration is free via: https://carbonclap.ecoprod.com/register Each Carbon’Clap user must create a personal account. By registering on Carbon’Clap, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of use.
Everyone can use Ecoprod tools for free, without having followed any training beforehand.
However, being trained in their use allows saving time in using them but especially in setting up a real green production strategy to reduce the environmental impact of the project.
Ecoprod offers various trainings to get trained on the Carbon’Clap and green production: https://www.ecoprod.com/fr/les-outils-pour-agir/formations.html
Carbon’Clap can be used on all digital devices connected to the Internet. To save data, it is essential to be connected to the Internet at the time of saving. Be careful, it is essential to save by clicking at the bottom of each page.
The carbon balance of an audiovisual production accounts for the greenhouse gas emissions linked to the production of a work from the preparation phase to post-production. Once you have entered all the information requested by the calculator, the carbon balance of the production will be available.
A forecast balance or a priori balance, established during the preparation phase. It allows defining the main lines and estimates of your project and identifying the most emitting posts and departments to build an green production strategy to reduce them. In the configuration page, check “forecast balance”.
And a final balance established from the actual data of your production, which is therefore more accurate and much closer to the reality of your production’s impact than the forecast balance. In the configuration page, check “final balance”.
You can check final balance at the top of the configuration page or duplicate a forecast balance on your project page.
Both balances: forecast and final include the same data to be filled in. You can duplicate a forecast balance to copy your data and establish your final balance by only making the necessary modifications.
For projects benefiting from CNC aids: To meet the requirements of the CNC’s Action Plan!, you will need to produce two Balances.
The Carbon’Clap was approved by the CNC on March 9, 2023. The tool was developed to meet the CNC requirements and allows for the creation of forecast carbon balances at the time of the production budget, as well as final carbon balances to be provided when submitting the account.
In late June 2021, the National Centre for Cinema and the Moving Image (CNC) announced the launch of its “Action Plan!” for a public policy of ecological and energy transition in the cinema, audiovisual, and moving image sectors. Among its measures, the obligation to deliver a carbon balance for any work or project (fiction or documentary) funded by the CNC from the end of March 2023 and the conditioning of aids on the delivery of a carbon balance as of January 1, 2024. For
more information on the Action Plan!, visit the dedicated page on the CNC website.
In order to “support professionals towards a more responsible transformation of the cinema and audiovisual sectors, and to raise their awareness of the environmental impact of their activities, help them reduce it and make the eco-responsibility of French productions an issue of international attractiveness”, the CNC, in collaboration with French broadcasters, published a carbon calculator certification specifications at the end of 2022.
Everything included in your production budget, except artistic rights, wages, and social charges, must be included in your carbon balance.
Project management
The Forecast Balance allows for an estimation of your project’s impacts, ahead of phase. It is not about “provisional” data, but rather “forecast” data estimated for your project.
Closing a balance is considered as a “locking” of the data for entry.
This was required by the CNC so that the data could not be modified after the accounts have been rendered.
So, there is indeed a “closure” of the Forecast Balance, and also a “closure” of the Final Balance for the CNC submissions.
The closure of a Forecast Balance does not lead to its classification as a “Final Balance”.
The notion of “forecast” is indicated in the sense of the CNC, to make an “estimative” balance of your project.
The “forecast” balance is not to be considered as a “provisional” balance that would be translated into “final” data once closed; it is indeed about real production data, estimated in advance for the forecast balance.
You have the option to work with multiple people to fill out the Carbon’Clap collaboratively. In your project, click on “Manage collaboration” and add the email of the person you want to add to the project.
Note that the user who originated the project remains the owner of the project, and the invited user cannot modify the configuration.
There is currently no mechanism for transferring project ownership.
It is possible to invite as many collaborators as you want to fill in the data for the same project. However, for the moment, it is not possible to fill in simultaneously with multiple people.
You have the option to duplicate a project in order to copy the data into a new project. You will only need to modify the fields already filled in with the information of your new project.
Various options are possible: you have the option to enter all the data for a season or series to have its global impact. But you can also create a project only for one episode. You will then be able to duplicate it and modify it for the following episodes.
Yes, the option is available per project, in the MY PROJECTS view.
Collaboration management on a project
Define access for contributions to your project and assign roles:
Contributor Role: can modify all data in the forms, and access the balance, but cannot see or modify the project’s configuration.
Reader Role (balance): can only consult the “Balance” page of the project but not access the forms.
By assigning the Owner role, you transfer the ownership of your project. The owner role can modify all parameters and data of the project, delete the project, and manage collaboration.
Project management:
Only the project owner has control over the management of the configuration and collaboration.
This is a necessary security lever for the data handled by the project owner.
Also, in case of ownership transfer, we invite you to ask the Project Owner to delegate their ownership by designating you Owner in the configuration management. This will grant you full ownership of the project.
If the person has left, and their account still exists, Ecoprod can exceptionally do this for you, upon explicit request for a given project.
Note: if a collaborator is removed from a project, their data disappears from their account.
Company account
Define access for contributions to your project and assign roles:
To create your premium company space, please contact Ecoprod personally.
carbonclap@ecoprod.com
Project configuration
It is possible to use the Carbon’Clap for shootings abroad and international co-productions.
Local emission factors (local energy mix) are taken into account in the calculations.
The “format” data is a metadata, which will allow for sectorial statistics. In 6K, it is recommended to select the Shooting Format data “4K”, the closest to an ultra-HD shooting.
Select the steps and activities that your production will cover. If you do not yet have the data accessible, you can leave the field blank, without consequence, simply no calculation will be performed on the data.
It is recommended to take into account the start date of production, in the sense where the first expenses are accounted for. The method is to take into account the first day of the production director, until the delivery of the PAD.
Production
Most trips are to be taken into account in the travel tab: public, extras, casting, scouting, team, equipment transport, actors
However, the trips of the production team in the prep phase and the post-prod team are already included in the data of the office workdays.
Enter the duration of use covered by the production duration. Even if your offices are occupied year-round, the balance accounts for everything that is reported to the temporal scope of your production only.
Required by the CNC for the tool’s certification, this data allows for entering data related to the CNC Budget for the following lines:
92 – ADVERTISING, PROMOTION, AND MISCELLANEOUS
93 – LEGAL FEES, MISCELLANEOUS FEES, AND ACCOUNT CERTIFICATIONS
94 – FINANCIAL EXPENSES
The impact takes into account the non-material activities of the production. We accept to also find fees such as Storyboard, Casting, Cleaning… and green production consulting for example.
It calls for a “monetary ratio” that associates a carbon impact to the “€” entered, based on a type of service activities called “intellectual services”, i.e., non-material services.
Be careful, however, to only take into account data within the production scope. Fees related to broadcasting and distribution are not yet covered by the balance required by the CNC.
The CNC is not in favor of extracting legal and financial fees from the carbon footprint calculation even if it only covers money transfer fees. The CNC does not condition aids on the carbon result. However, if the associated impact represents a bias on the total balance, because a bit too significant compared to other items, you must specify it in the summary of your carbon balance, to explain and justify this impact.
If you declare the offices used throughout the pre-production and production duration, it is recommended to check both corresponding stages.
Currently, IT equipment (computers, printers…) are declared not specifically for an office. You can therefore make an average of these equipments for all declared premises.
Shooting location
The power consumption can be reported in the “Shooting Locations” tab > Indoor Location > Indoor Studio > Estimate of electricity consumption.
As the manufacturing footprint of such a device is very CO2e emitting, we recommend still considering this item by mentioning it in the sets.
In the carbon methodology, the immobilization of equipment over their period of use is considered, therefore, in this sense, it may be logical that its cost is amortized over the duration of use. The rental of the LED wall can be reported in “Sets > Set rental cost”.
It is important to be aware that this method, which uses financial data, is a workaround to compensate for the lack of physical data, it remains a good approach to account for this item. An update will allow LED walls to be declared soon.
It is necessary to determine the scope of the production and the control you have over the filmed events.
For example, in the case of a documentary in a natural setting, if the filmed event takes place specifically for the needs of your film, in this case, you are responsible for the associated carbon emissions.
However, if the event would have taken place anyway without your intervention, you do not have operational or financial control over it, and in this case, the associated emissions are not your responsibility. Only the additional energy that your shooting represented counts in this case: transport in the Movement tab, Technical Means, catering in Catering, and any energy consumed on-site if you have deployed a significant capture device (mobile control room, numerous cameras, lighting…).
If you consider that your shooting did not represent any additional energy, or it is insignificant compared to the other activities of the location, you can ignore the energy of shooting locations (or simply consider only the battery recharge, which is a few kWh in total).
There is no specific field for bottled gas, but you can declare the volume of gas consumed in the “Heating” section. For reference, a standard “butane/propane” gas bottle contains 0.0306m3 of gas. You can multiply this value by the number of bottles used.
The purpose of estimating electricity consumption on the shooting location is to evaluate the electrical energy consumed by the deployed shooting devices. For indoor shooting locations, an estimate is proposed based on the studio area occupied per day of shooting. This estimate comes from the Workflowers studio study and applies preferably to shooting studios for fiction, cinema, and TV sets.
In the context of a documentary, for example, it is preferable to estimate electricity consumption differently, as it may be less.
If the shooting unit is very light in terms of technical means (e.g., 1 camera, no lighting), it is likely that energy consumption on the location does not represent a significant consumption compared to other observed items.
In this context, you are not required to declare electricity consumption related to shooting locations.
However, if you really want to be very precise, you can perform a simple estimation calculation.
Take the power of the deployed devices multiplied by the duration of shooting.
Example, location A: 2 days of shooting.
– 3 LED projectors 300W
– cameras (6 batteries charged/day of 95Wh).
Multiply these powers (reported in kW) by the duration of shooting to get a consumption in kWh:
– (3 × 0.300kW) × (2 days × 8 hours of shooting) = 14 kWh
– (6 × 0.095kW) × (2 days × 8 hours of shooting) = 9 kWh
So, a consumption of location A over 2 days is 23 kWh, to be reported in “Estimation of electricity consumption” in CarbonClap.
Note that in France, 1 kWh of electrical energy consumed emits about 50 grams of CO2e.
So, below 100 kWh, the impact will be only a few kilograms of CO2 equivalent and will remain low compared to other emission items such as transport.
It is advisable to account for these places in “Shooting Locations > Fixed annexes to the shooting”, by declaring a new indoor or outdoor shooting location, and estimating or measuring the electricity consumption related to these places (to be entered in kWh).
For example: production office + styling/dressing room + catering supplied on location:
Typical consumptions that can be suggested:
– production office: 2 kWh/workstation/day
– dressing room/HMC: 6 kWh/workstation/day
– catering: 12 kWh/day/meal truck
It is indeed possible for you to simplify the task by grouping the shooting days of different locations. We do not have any right to review the data of your evaluation and do not produce statistics on the data of your declared locations.
The “indoor / outdoor” declaration is data that simply allows proposing a consumption statistic for the “indoor” choice, based on the occupied area and duration of use. What matters for sets is to specify an energy consumption, whether it is electrical or from a generator.
In this specific case, you declare the outdoor set, with its electrical consumption in kWh for the electricity consumed. We do not have an electricity consumption statistic for outdoor to offer as the variability of means can be great.
A little mathematical exercise on your part can be performed: take the list of lighting deployed on the set, assign their consumption by the duration.
Example: 4 HMI projectors of 6kW for 10 days of shooting for 8 hours: 4 × 6kW × 8h × 10 days = 1920 kWh consumed.
You must declare the total volume used on the production. The tool does not perform any calculations on the “volume of fuel” declared field. Thus, in the case of an estimate based on daily consumption, it is up to you to multiply the volume by the number of days for example.
Note: it is roughly estimated that a generator truck consumes between 15 and 30 liters of diesel per hour.
Set design
There are indeed 2 approaches to avoid double accounting for reused sets.
1/ the set is accounted “once and for all” at its construction.
2/ the amortization of construction is spread over the number of uses.
We prefer the second approach, more in line with the accounting amortizations of equipment of the carbon methodology. In this case, and until we integrate the option into Carbon’Clap, yes, you can allocate an equivalent share of the construction cost over the number of uses of the set (excluding possible refurbishment/maintenance costs to be added each time).
Costumes
There is not yet the possibility to enter this data on CarbonClap.
Transportation
Road vehicle trips should be indicated “per vehicle,” regardless of the number of passengers.
Example: 4 cars travel 100km; indicate: 100km, 4 trips.
Another example: 1 taxi makes 4 round trips between Nancy and Metz: Indicate “Nancy”-“Metz”: 4 trips.
Trips by public transport (train, plane, bus) should be indicated per individual ticket (“per passenger”).
Example: 15 train tickets from Lyon to Paris; indicate: “Lyon”-“Paris”, 15 trips.
Another example: 4 people fly from Paris to Madrid: indicate: “Paris”-“Madrid”, 4 trips.
Freight trips (goods transportation) should be indicated per vehicle, and with the transported weight.
Example: a fleet of 4 trucks (camera, lighting, mechanics, dressing rooms), carrying 1.5 tons of equipment, shoot for 10 days and travel an average of 50 km per day; indicate: 50 km and 1500 kg, and 40 trips (4 trucks x 10 days).
Note that this equates to the same as indicating: 2000 km (50 * 40), 1500 kg, and 1 unique trip.
Yes. If the trip was made for the needs of the film, it should be included. Consult with the production admin for precise expense notes on which they indicate the number of km traveled and the type of vehicle. If not, a survey should be conducted among the team to see how they generally travel (mode of transport, average number of km) and make an average in a “technical teams’ travel” block. You can also specify these trips in “Group Travel” to simplify the task.
For the moment in Technical Means > Special Technical Means. An update is planned to add a dedicated section to more specifically account for the vehicles used in the game.
Catering
Currently, Carbon’Clap does not distinguish between different types of accommodations (hotel, rentals, camping, etc.).
For overnight stays, you must still specify the production’s rentals (apartment type, AirBnB, cottages) in the “Hotel Nights” for lack of a dedicated field at the moment.
This is on the basis of “1 night” per night funded by the production and per person.
If your technicians are lodged at their homes, it is not necessary to specify this particularly. Moreover, nights under a tent, hammock, bivouac, are not necessary to be indicated at the moment.
We are working to provide more details on the types of accommodations in the future for more precision in the tool.
The different options for bins are possible, if there are only two bins (“recycling” and “general waste”), recyclable waste can be indicated in “Recyclable Waste”, others in “General Waste”.
The per-diems for technicians and teams restored during the production duration must be counted. This concerns only the shooting part. For production teams, this value is already accounted for in the activity days, and likewise in post-production.
The form field “Meal of unknown dietary regime” allows per-diems to be counted as an “average meal” with a distribution of average dietary regimes in France.
You can use the “Estimate” function of the “Catering” tab of Carbon’Clap, which proposes an estimate of the catering waste, based on information provided by the “End of Waste” service provider.
Yes, the food purchases of the catering table should be reported here.
You can use the “Recyclable Waste” field for this, by estimating the weight associated with these wastes.
Technical production means
Biofuels are indeed absent from the choices offered for generators.
Their integration was conditional upon an in-depth environmental perspective study.
The ADEME study from 2019 remains cautious in its conclusions on this matter: quote “The difference in the impact on air pollution between the consumption of conventional biofuels and fossil fuels is very variable and makes it difficult to conclusively determine the benefits of using biofuels.”
Emission factors do exist, however, in the carbon database, and we wish to integrate them in the future. Nevertheless, we are not in favor of arranging calculations to “50% consumption” to account for the impact reduction related to the use of biofuels. It is better to “overestimate” the impact, with the actual volumes of biofuels consumed, entered in the form as “Don’t know” (=diesel), and to reassess with the correct factor when the option becomes available.
You can declare 2 different sections of “Generators” to differentiate the energy sources powering the dressing rooms and catering trucks.
We have not yet studied precise data on the emissions related to satellite transmissions. It is certain that the cost of these services does not truly reflect the exact carbon intensity of this activity. We wish to improve this point as the request has come from broadcast and TV productions. In the meantime, either you overestimate the impact by indicating a budget line in the “Technical Production Means” (e.g., “Shooting” for example), or you underestimate the impact by only declaring the satellite transmission truck in the “Production Regies” part of this tab. In this second case, the transmission itself is not considered, only the truck and its equipment are modeled here.
Post-production
The current methodology involves the use of several types of input data in the tool.
– Physical data: km, meals, kWh…
– Monetary data: €
Monetary data, which would naturally be the one with which one indicates services performed as “in-kind contributions,” uses a “monetary ratio” factor to account for the technical service.
This factor proposed by ADEME associates a given amount with a proportional “CO2e” impact, based on an indicator that is still not very precise for post-production activities.
Therefore, monetary data should only be used as a last resort, in the absence of any other more qualitative information.
Especially since the euro/carbon correlation is often weak, because if you negotiate your service well, you will reduce your impact.
That’s why, Carbon’Clap offers an alternative to this method, with a carbon impact modeling based on a day of activity of a post-production technician.
This model aims to cover all activity posts related to a post-production activity:
– Collaborators: home-to-work commutes and meals
– Equipment: immobilization and energy
– Building: energy and air conditioning
You can therefore use this model, which is closer to reality, by specifying “Number of work days”.
Associate the estimated effort for each day.employee.
Example: 2 people worked 10 days on editing = 20 days of activity.
The data to be entered for the “Post-production > digital data archiving” item are the final digital data archived.
These are the data generated by the production that will be stored and persist after production (archived online, on tape, or on disk). Production data that is deleted has a lesser impact in the long term, since it does not mobilize new resources, while the “additional” data generated are those that mobilize new digital supports and have a high impact.
Data stored on a physical server should be reported in “Physical Archiving” under “HDD” (“HDD” stands for “hard disk drive,” which is the physical support of most storage servers in post-production). Note that CarbonClap only requires declaring the “additional” data generated by the production, which will remain archived or stored. Other data that temporarily transits for creation (and which are deleted) do not presumably mobilize new disk resources. If the storage server was purchased for the production and solely dedicated to it, in this case, its capacity can be reported here, as the impact of this server is only related to this production.
It is not yet possible to account for the digital data exchanged during the production. The impact of these data can be significant, but their traceability by the production is often difficult. Our teams are working to add these data to the tool.
You can declare your activities in 2 different repeatable sections, specifying the country in which the service takes place.
Submitting your carbon footprint to the CNC
To submit your carbon footprint to the CNC, it is necessary to export your report in the correct format. To do this:
Enter your data into Carbon’Clap > Close the project > On the “Report” page, export your CNC carbon footprint report by clicking on “Export CNC”
The exported Excel document is not editable and corresponds to the common base required by the CNC. This document must be submitted to the CNC.
If you close the project for the CNC, the form will be locked to read-only, and you will no longer be able to modify it.
We advise you to make a copy of the project before closing it, which allows you to reuse the project by editing the forecast data later for the final report, for example.
Technical shooting means are always reported by default in the “cinematographic shooting” field of the CNC export.
For now, no data is entered in the “video shooting” because we cannot easily distinguish between “cinema” and “video” in the form.
Project report – Understanding your results
The relatively significant impact of post-production compared to other emission sources in your project can be explained when you declare your activity with a financial amount.
The current methodology involves the use of several types of input data in the tool
– Physical data: km, meals, kWh…
– Monetary data: €
Monetary data uses a “monetary ratio” factor to account for the technical service.
This factor proposed by ADEME associates a given amount with a proportional “CO2e” impact, based on an indicator that is still not very precise for post-production activities.
Therefore, monetary data should only be used as a last resort, in the absence of any other more qualitative information.
Especially since the euro/carbon correlation is often weak because if you negotiate your service well, you will reduce your impact.
That’s why Carbon’Clap offers an alternative to this method, with a carbon impact modeling based on a day of activity of a post-production technician.
This model aims to cover all activity posts related to a post-production activity:
– Collaborators: home-to-work commutes and meals
– Equipment: immobilization and energy
– Building: energy and air conditioning
You can therefore use this model, which is closer to reality, by specifying “Number of work days”.
Associate the estimated effort for each day.employee.
Example: 2 people worked 10 days on editing = 20 days of activity.
Also, if the report of the work done with CarbonClap is today a good indicator of the overall impact of your production, it is true that the detailed analysis of emission posts remains imprecise when activities are declared in financial amounts.
You are right to be concerned about the relatively significant impact of Technical Means compared to other emission sources.
The current methodology involves the use of an impact factor of the type “monetary ratio” to account for the technical service of renting the equipment.
This factor associates an amount in “€” with a “CO2” impact, based on an indicator that is still not very precise for activities related to renting video and sound equipment.
We are aware of the bias that exists on technical means, which is why we are currently working on conducting a sectorial study of technical means to refine this indicator.
Also, if the report of the work done with CarbonClap is today a good indicator of the overall impact of your production, it is true that the detailed analysis of emission posts is not yet sufficiently precise on Technical Means in particular.
When the study is completed, an update is planned to address the situation.
Do not hesitate to let us know if you think you can share relevant information with us to contribute to this study.
For the same project, does Carbon’Clap give the same results as other tools approved by CNC ?
It is possible that the results are not identical. Despite CNC’s approval, carbon accounting methodologies are not yet sufficiently established for projects like those in the audiovisual sector, with a very broad spectrum of data. Carbon’Clap was built based on the most solid national databases (notably ADEME’s database) and modeled with experts from Workflowers.
Obviously, the heavier the report, the worse it is and the more significant impact it has on the climate. Measuring your carbon footprint is not an end in itself; the goal is indeed to reduce it to limit global warming.
Ecoprod will gradually integrate anonymized statistics that will allow you to see where your project falls. Of course, each project being unique, it is difficult to compare them, but various parameters will be taken into account, such as the overall cost of production and its duration.
The estimate is based on sectorial statistics; it is necessary to break away from them as much as possible and enter the real consumption measures.
Ecoprod will gradually integrate statistics that will allow you to see where your project falls.
The observed parameters can vary greatly, so it is often difficult to compare two works.
For example: an advertisement shot abroad may have a lower production cost than its equivalent shot in France, yet its impact will be higher due to transportation.
Determining relevant indicators is one of Ecoprod’s missions :
– budget range, duration of the produced work, location, number of technicians…
If you would like to contribute to the working group on this subject, please contact us !
Goods Purchases:
– Amount spent on set decoration
– Amount spent on second-hand purchases for set decoration
– Amount spent on constructions and purchases of raw materials
– Amount spent on costumes
– Amount spent on second-hand purchases for costumes
– Amount spent on costume making
– Amount spent on makeup purchases
– Amount spent on hairdressing purchases
– Cost of purchasing film stock and media
Impact reduction and good practices promotion
This aspect is automatically taken into account: If you carpool, the number of cars on your shoot will be smaller. Consequently, you will enter fewer vehicles, so your carbon footprint will be lower.
Their valuation often comes from the fact that second-hand purchases cost less than new materials.
User feedback under development
An update is currently under consideration for this feature.
