Bottle Yard’s green award

BRISTOL’S Bottle Yard film and television studios’ new £13.5million facility has become one of the first in the industry to attain a top environmental accreditation.

The studios’ TBY2, which houses three sound stages and officially opened last November, has been awarded the new Studio Sustainability Standard by BAFTA Albert, the UK’s industry organisation for greener operations in TV and film.

The facility is powered by an array of giant solar panels on its rooftop, which the studio says is the largest community-owned rooftop array in the country and the biggest rooftop solar energy system in the UK studios sector.

TBY2 was the second-highest scoring studio of the 12 participants in the first cohort for the new Studio Sustainability Standard. It is one of five studios that received a ‘Very Good’ rating, the highest grade achieved in the group.

Laura Aviles, senior film manager at Bristol City Council, which owns and runs the studio, said: “By placing sustainability at the heart of our expansion and working with Bristol Energy Cooperative and Bristol Council’s Energy Services team, we were able to achieve our ambitious vision of a state-of-the-art, solarpowered studio.

“The exciting thing about the community ownership model is that it is entirely replicable and brings direct benefits to the local area as well as our production clients.”

Launched in 2022, the voluntary Studio Sustainability Standard scheme was designed by BAFTA Albert alongside global engineering and consulting firm Arup, to help studios measure and reduce the environmental impact of their facilities. All participating studios commit to making year-on-year improvements to their sustainability.

BAFTA Albert director Carys Taylor added: “As participants in the Albert Studio Sustainability Standard, they’re on a path to being the most sustainable in the world too.”