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Take a stand with Green 'Land'
June 6, 2007

We have written before about the role Wal-Mart is playing in moving marketers--not just of home entertainment, but of all consumer goods carried in its stores--to more green business practices. 

The mass merchant, which accouts for roughly half of the DVD sell-through market, has made environment sustainability a core corporate priority and has a goal of reducing packaging of products carried in its stores by 5% by 2013.

So given all that, I hope  expect to see lots and lots of copies on Wal-Mart's shelves of upcoming Fox indie Sweet Land, which claims to be the first independently produced carbon-neutral film. 

The film, based on the Will Weaver short story "A Gravestone Made of Wheat," won an Indpendent Spirit Award for Best First Feature. More to the point, director Ari Selim worked with an organization in London called The CarbonNeutral Company to identify and use CO2 saving measures like using sunlight instead of generators, carpooling and not flying people home on the weekends (must've save a ton of production $$ as well).

Then, at the end of production, the CarbonNeutral people tallied every emission, to conclude that Sweet Land still generated eight tons of carbon waste.

So, Selim invested in windmills in Jamaica and reforestation projects in Germany to neutralize the effects on the environment of making the film.

 A featurette about the making of the film is included on the DVD.

If you believe we can all do something to better the environment, you should support this film--and tell the "carbon-neutral"story to your customers, who just might find that a reason to support it as well. You'll do good, and do good for your business.

Posted by Marcy Magiera on June 6, 2007 | Comments (0)