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Meet the ‘Angel’ Helping Hollywood End Its Wasteful Ways

Earth Angel helps productions of all sizes reduce their footprint through education, resource management and carbon tracking — with the goal of harnessing the cultural influence of the entertainment industry to scale these efforts.

From pre-production to post-production and the many stages in between, the film industry is one of the largest producers of unnecessary waste in the world: From construction and set debris to costume materials and food, utensil and foodservice-ware waste, the average TV show or movie in 2022 created about 240 tons of waste. Recognition of the issue has spawned a new breed of service providers dedicated to helping productions eliminate and redirect their waste.

Earth Angel is one such startup that works with productions of various sizes to reduce their carbon footprint through education, resource management and carbon tracking with the goal of harnessing the cultural influence of the entertainment industry to scale these efforts.

An ‘Earth Angel’ is born

After graduating from NYU’s renowned Tisch Film Program, founder Emellie O’ Brien landed her first role as a sustainability steward with Big Beach Films in 2011. Since her first days in production, she knew there was a way for on-set sustainability efforts to go beyond basic waste management and recycling. Her early years of dedication to more conscientious practices on set earned her the nickname “Earth Angel” from fellow crew members and colleagues — a title she took forward into her own venture of the same name in 2013. Since then, Earth Angel has developed a scalable model that provides film crews with strategic approaches to reducing the environmental impact of their productions.

“I knew what a powerful medium this was and really wanted to help leverage it toward educating folks on these important issues,” O’Brien told Deadline earlier this year. “It wasn’t until I got onto my first professional film set where my eyes were really opened to the amount of resource inefficiency that was happening.”

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To date, Earth Angel has helped productions avoid over 29,000 metric tons of carbon emissions and over 6 million plastic water bottles from being used, divert 24 million pounds of waste, donate 711,000 pounds of material valued at $1.98 million, and donate over 259,000 meals to local communities.

As director Darren Aronofsky told the Hollywood Reporter: “When we did Noah, we knew we were making a film about the first steward of the earth — so, we wanted to be good stewards ourselves. There’s so much waste on film sets; and because of groups like Earth Angel, we were able to change that a little bit.”

A savior for strapped film crews

Earth Angel founder Emellie O’Brien on the set of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 | Image credit: Earth Angel

Production teams are often strapped for time, and attempting to manage sustainability independently often means efforts fall by the wayside. Service providers such as Earth Angel help bridge the gap between studio-level sustainability policies and on-the-ground production support; bringing them in as early as possible in the planning stages ensures the production is equipped with the appropriate strategies, skilled labor, supplies and analytics to most effectively reduce its environmental impact.

"It all starts for us in pre-production and assessing where we can help,” explains Quinn Yawger, Earth Angel’s Senior Manager of Production Services. "From the very beginning, before they start building or buying their materials, is there a way we can design it to be more sustainable?"

Earth Angel helps production teams overcome barriers to implementing responsible production practices — including scaling mobile clean-energy solutions, such as microgrids and solar-powered trailers; and increasing circularity by ensuring responsible sourcing of materials and supplies, and recovery and donation strategies.

Earth Angel believes being more sustainable really means being more resourceful. Programs are centered around efficiencies that save tens of thousands of dollars — which is typically more than enough to recapture the cost of bringing on an “Eco Department.” On Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), Earth Angel’s assistance in vendor procurement, data analysis and reporting helped save the studio approximately $400,000; and for A24's production of Aronofsky’s The Whale (2022), the company helped divert 5.4 tons of materials from landfills and recovered an additional 2.1 tons of donations during its wrap — achieving an overall diversion rate of 82 percent. Among the materials donated were stage flats from the film’s set, gifted to a local performing arts academy, and more than 1,800 meals gifted to food banks and community organizations.

The Earth Angel team says they look forward to dynamically expanding impact and ensuring production teams can continue to create quality content through safer, circular, inclusive, transparent, accessible and net-zero practices.

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