Tampere Film Festival has been granted EcoCompass Certificate

Tampere Film Festival has been granted the EcoCompass Certificate, which helps to make the organisation’s operations more sustainable. EcoCompass is a Finnish environmental management system that helps companies and organisations to develop and steer their operations in a more environmentally sustainable direction. The certificate is awarded when an organisation or company has built its own EcoCompass environmental management system and passed an audit by an independent expert.

Tampere Film Festival is committed to reducing its carbon footprint, and EcoCompass is one of the tools for implementing environmentally responsible practices. To obtain the certificate, ten criteria must be met, including an environmental pledge and annual reporting on the measures and criteria of the pledge. Checks on compliance with the criteria are carried out every three years. Reducing the carbon footprint of our festival is at the heart of our environmental pledge. We pay particular attention to improving our monitoring methods and aim to improve our results every year. We are also looking for additional resources to develop our sustainability.

You can find all the criteria to get the certificate on the Ecocompass website.

Environmental responsibility has long been a feature of Tampere Film Festival’s activities, both in the office and during the hectic festival week. We aim to avoid unnecessary consumption of energy, water and natural resources, both in our offices and at the festival venues. We also sort waste in our office and at the venues, we aim to make our public relations materials to be as long-lived as possible  and we serve only vegetarian food at events.

For more information on our environmental responsibility, please visit the Sustainability section of our website.

Environmental issues are a recurring theme of the festival’s programme, and this year is no exception. Forest programme deals with the forest from the perspectives of forestry and Finnish folklore, for example. In addition, environmental tickets have been on sale for this year’s screenings, with the Tampere Film Festival donating €2 of the ticket price to the Natural Heritage Foundation’s Protect a Piece of Pirkanmaa campaign.

Tampere Film Festival also awards the annual Verso Sustainability Award. Verso will be awarded for the third time this year at the Award Ceremony on 9 March, and will be given to a Finnish film production that takes ecological sustainability into account. In previous years, the Verso Honorary Award has also been presented.