Prince William calls on TV industry to go green

The effects of climate change have set the "world on fire", Prince William said at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards, or BAFTAs, this weekend, when he promoted planet placement, an initiative where shows include environmental messaging in ordinary programming.

The royal said that film and television makers have the ability to reach wide audiences with their productions, and that including content around sustainability can raise awareness and prompt behavioral changes that limit emissions.

"Now more than ever, program makers have a unique opportunity to ensure climate change and sustainability remain at the forefront of our collective consciousness," said William, who is the president of BAFTA.

"By creating innovative, educational and emotive content for television, writers and producers are playing a unique role in ensuring the future of our planet is something that we all want to talk about," he added.

In 2019, Albert, an environmental organization that encourages the TV and film production industry to reduce emissions, together with BAFTA launched the planet placement initiative, and subsequently numerous British television companies have joined and pledged to include environmental content in their programming. The two companies also commissioned consulting firm Deloitte to analyze subtitle data in order to monitor how climate change issues are discussed across British media.

An example of planet placement in action was a sustainability-themed quiz on Sky Sports in March 2021, featuring soccer stars Bukayo Saka and Eric Dier during the build-up to the English Premier League game between Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur.

Albert has praised several other shows for highlighting environmental issues, including: the BBC program the Great British Sewing Bee, which dedicated a whole episode to reducing, reusing, and recycling in the fashion industry; the 2020 hit miniseries I May Destroy You, which explored veganism and food emissions; and the 2021 show His Dark Materials, which showed Save the Arctic posters in the background of shots.

"Over the past year, we've seen some fantastic examples of this across a wide variety of programs and genres," said William. "I hope you will all continue to carry on your invaluable work, keeping environmental issues high up on the agenda of programming in the years ahead."

At this year's BAFTAs the award for best live event went to the inaugural televised awards ceremony for the The Earthshot Prize, which was launched by William and British naturalist David Attenborough. The 1 million-pound ($1.2 million) prize is given each year to an individual or organization for notable contributions to environmental causes, and is funded by donations from several charitable organizations and philanthropists, including Chinese entrepreneur Jack Ma.