Film production company Newyonder is launching a new ‘sustainable’ film streamer, delivered through Red Bee Media’s Managed OTT services.
Newyonder intends to measure its entire social and environmental impact, including the energy consumption and carbon footprint of creating and streaming its films. Its first two feature documentary films, Wild Isles and Three Moons of Biyangdo, are now streaming on newyonder.earth and available as a pay-per-view rentals. As the amount of content expands, Newyonder intends for the service to will evolve into a subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) offering.
“In essence, you go beyond the story and subscribe for change – to be immersed in the power of story whilst being a part of something bigger – to help restore the planet,” said Jon Cleave, CEO and Founder of Newyonder. “I hope to be able to influence other media companies and filmmakers to follow in our footsteps, putting sustainability at the forefront without compromising creativity, quality, reach and profitability. I’m happy to have the support from Red Bee on this journey.”
All films are Albert-certified (BAFTA) carbon-neutral, sustainable productions with the ambition to have a positive social and environmental impact. This includes minimizing travel, compensating for any emissions, hiring local crew, and investing parts of the revenue in nature-based sustainability initiatives, such as seagrass creation and other regenerative impact projects.
“We take pride in supporting Newyonder in their quest to make the world more sustainable and inspire others in media and entertainment to do the same,” says James Arnold, Chief Commercial Officer, Red Bee. “Red Bee is already supporting sustainability initiatives in the media industry, and now we are looking forward to following Newyonder’s progress, learning from it, and together taking further steps to preserve the planet”.
Red Bee is a sponsor of the DPP Committed to Sustainability Programme, achieving a 5/5 score, by significantly decreasing the company’s energy consumption in the past year.
Newyonder is currently carbon neutral and aims to be carbon negative once its regenerative impact projects are implemented. One of the biggest challenges is the measurement of emissions from streaming, but the company is leaning on recent research and will continue to develop and refine its methods.
Last November, a study by the LoCat Project concluded on average across Europe in 2020, the energy consumption associated with one device viewing hour delivered via DTT (digital terrestrial television) was 14 Wh (Watt hours), compared to 109 Wh for over the top delivery (OTT) and 153 Wh for managed IPTV.
