Workshop Sustainable Catering: No talk, all action!

On February 20, 2018, our Workshop Sustainable Catering took place in BlueCity in Rotterdam. This meeting focused on how we can apply the wish to work sustainably to film catering. Where do you get sustainable ingredients and materials and how can you manage financially? Where do you go with your waste and how should you separate it? In order to tackle these and other questions thoroughly, Green Film Making invited the three most important parties: caterers, producers and location managers. Moderator for the event was presenter and journalist Margreet Reijntjes (VARA’s Early Birds and NPO Radio 1 Twee Dingen).

A sustainable trade fair was open for the duration of the workshop for attendees to see different sustainable solutions themselves and meet with the entrepreneurs directly. They were: Biofutura, Wattsun, Burgs Foods, Stichting Buurtcompost, Locatiewerk, Geld GROEN Wassen, Rotterzwam and Setsink.

The workshop program was created based on the input and experiences of caterers who already work sustainably. In the first plenary part there was a waste separation demonstration led by Renewi, a panel discussion about waste on location with, among others, the film commissioners of Rotterdam and The Hague and presentations by BlueCity and Green Film Making.

The second part of the evening consisted of smaller working groups on different themes to arrive at concrete plans: Stichting Buurtcompost about compost and worm hotels (led by Arie Van Ziel), Renewi about a zero waste set (led by Jurrien de Pijper), Locatiewerk on sustainable transport (led by Tijn Heerkens), geld GROEN wassen for financing sustainable ambitions (led by Anne Stijkel) and SuperUse Studios about a harvest map for the Dutch film industry (led by Jos de Krieger).

The most important points and outcomes of the evening at a glance:

  • There is a need for a special platform for knowledge exchange facilitated by Green Film Making.
  • There is also a need for a Harvest Map/ Material Map linked to this, which provides insight into various things such as energy, waste and products, where it can be collected or brought. SuperUse is prepared to work on this, if the industry provides the input.
  • Green Film Making has to be financed to make this possible, for example by a member system or by Wash Money Green.
  • We would like an incentive with subsidies that requires to work sustainability.
  • A proposal could be submitted by the film commissioners to their municipalities to request a pass for access to the waste disposal system, wherever possible.
  • And also a proposal to gain access to the charging network for electric cars.
  • Renewi is calling for productions willing to participate in a pilot for a zero waste set. Who wants to?
  • If Renewi ensures that a pilot can be run at a sector in Amsterdam, Green Film Making promises to make a video report of this.
  • Request from Stichting Buurtcompost: Who wants to try to process waste locally in their next production and to compost everything you take with you?
  • As a substantial customer, big producers have the key to invest in making suppliers more sustainable.
  • The initiative of Harm Bredero Urban Street Forest can make productions CO2 neutral by planting trees on balconies.

Want to know more? Read our detailed report here!

BlueCity

And last but not least, some words about the very inspiring location for the meeting: BlueCity in Rotterdam. BlueCity is a breeding ground for innovative companies that link their waste flows; the output of one is the input of another entrepreneur. This makes BlueCity, located in the former swimming paradise Tropicana, the leading example in the Netherlands of circular economy in practice.

All pictures below are made by Dorien Grötzinger.