The Eureca Carbon Calculator is a European project designed to provide emission factors specific to the media industry, as a part of the Green Screen project
In most cases CO2 is used as a reference unit. Within the Interreg funded Green Screen project, a detailed study of existing carbon calculators was commissioned. This study not only underlined the importance of measuring impact, but also detected some shortcomings. Existing calculators all differ in what areas they cover, are not always user friendly, have a regional focus (language barriers + lack of regional parameters) or are based on different impact categories.
This makes it difficult to use calculators in an international and standardized setting, particularly for co-productions. The biggest shortcoming might be that calculators are mainly used to report, once a production is finished. They form a snapshot of the finished production, but don’t push production crews into making sustainable choices during the production process.
This gave Green Screen partners from Promalaga, Slovak Film Commission and the Flanders Audiovisual Fund enough reasons to team up for the Pilot Action under Interreg Europe and develop Eureca.
Eureca is a European Environmental Calculator that aims to create a user friendly environmental impact calculator. This calculator can be applied to all kinds of audiovisual productions, covering pre-production, production and post production.
Partnership with Catholic University of Leuven
In partnership with Catholic University of Leuven (Flanders) reliable conversion factors and their correct use will be defined. These conversion factors are based on world class scientific research. These parameters will be applicable at an EU level, allowing for comparable data to be capture. Regional differences will be taken on board, i.e. the energy mix varies across different countries and hence the Carbon impact will differ per country. Eureca, however, will not only look at CO2 but will also measure other types of impact (like toxicity, water use, acidity, etc.). A broad group of stakeholders guide the Eureca development in an advisory group. The stakeholders will ensure that the functionality of the tool is relevant for filmmakers in different regions and they will help to test the tool before it is launched.