Intended as a starter guide for those wanting to make their work in lighting shows have as little impact on the environment as possible, the Green Guide offers suggestions for each phase of the process of show lighting, from initial meetings and planning through rig design, set-up and focus, show running, touring and final load-out.
"Many of the suggestions in our Green Guide are largely common sense," comments White Light's managing director, Bryan Raven, "but it's often the obvious things that get overlooked when it comes to putting a show together, particularly in the final hectic days of tech when the old mantra of 'the show must go on' tends to win out over everything else. We hope that by writing some suggestions down they might be able to be integrated into the planning and production process a little better."
The guide draws on the experience the company has gained in trying to reduce the environmental impact of its operations and working to introduce newer, more energy efficient technologies to lighting practitioners. This process has covered everything from installing a waste compactor, moving to filtered tap-water rather than bottled water, investigating hydrogen fuel cells as a power source for outdoor events, and adopting a wide range of LED lighting products - as well as continuing the company's principal operation of renting lighting, giving equipment as long a working life as possible.
White Light has also been involved with a number of other environmental projects, including working with the Arcola Theatre on its aim to become the world's first carbon-neutral theatre, and collaborating with the Mayor of London's Office on its Green Theatre: Taking Action on Climate Change and with environmental organisation Julie's Bicycle on its Green Music guide.
The guide compliments these by focusing more specifically on lighting, hints ranging from switching off discharge moving lights when not actually in use, to considering new approaches to attaching cables to lighting bars. Designed to be easy to read on-screen, the White Light Green Guide is available for download only; it can be found at www.WhiteLight.Ltd.uk/greenguide.
(Jim Evans)
