BFI Environmental Impact Reporting FAQs

The BFI Sustainable Screen programme 2023-2026 is designed to support both BFI National Lottery awardees – who are now asked to apply the principle of environmental sustainability to their funded activity – and the wider screen sector.

There are different reporting timelines depending on your project.

Fixed term projects: If you are funded for a fixed term project that doesn’t align with the financial year, you should report as soon as your project is completed and prior to your final drawdown request.

Multi-annual awardees: Your designated reporting window is between 1 May – 30 June 2025. During this time, JB will have a dedicated team on hand with extra guidance and support to ease the process.

Film Academy awardees: Please report by 31st March 2025.

If you have the data available, you can begin to add data to
the tools at any time.

If there is a reason you cannot complete reporting by Monday 30th June 2025 (e.g. because your activities run in line with the school year for educational organisations) and you haven’t already told us, please send a message to the BFI Helpdesk to let us know.

Using a carbon calculator tool such as the Julie’s Bicycle Creative Climate Tools can help to build your understanding of the environmental impacts of your activities and day to day operations. The results of a carbon footprint calculation can clearly show you the areas of your organisation’s activity which have the greatest environmental impact.

Highlighting your main areas of impact can help you to focus and prioritise your environmental actions, set targets and track progress over time.

Due to the variety of projects which are funded by the BFI, to simplify the process for awardees and provide meaningful carbon footprint data it is better to focus on the whole organisation. Many organisations already calculate a carbon footprint annually for their corporate or other funder reporting. We are asking you for your organisational footprint to reduce the amount of work you have to do to clarify the proportion of your footprint which is attributed to BFI funded activity.

As a BFI National Lottery awardee, you are expected to report on your environmental impacts and carbon footprint using Julie’s Bicycle’s Creative Climate Tools.

Once a year, we will be looking at all data submitted in the tools, to help us see how things are going against the BFI National Lottery funding programme KPIs on awardee carbon footprint reporting and reduction.

Focus on thinking about your whole organisation’s activity, rather than the funded activity.

Use the footprint options on the Creative Climate Tools as a guide.

1. If your organisation is building based, then start with an Office or Venue/Cultural Building footprint.
2. Then think about additional activities that you deliver that are funded by the BFI.

• If you deliver a tour, then use the Tour footprint tool to report this.
• If you deliver a festival, use the Indoor or Outdoor Event tools to report this.
• If you deliver a training course, use the Indoor Event tool to report this.

No, you do not need to submit the same data again in a different footprint to report for the BFI. Make sure to add the BFI to your profile as a funding organisation.

1. Click on top right (under organisation name) select ‘organisation details’.
2. Under funding portfolio select BFI (multiple can be selected e.g. BFI and ACE NPO)
3. Select Save.

The reporting you already submit will cover any building impacts. Then you will want to think about any specific BFI funded activity e.g. a tour, festival or training course which can be reported on separately using the project footprint tools.

If your organisation doesn’t operate from an office or venue/cultural building, then think about the ‘Project’ tools on the CC tools and your BFI funded activity.

• If you deliver a tour, then use the Tour footprint tool to report this.
• If you deliver a festival, use the Indoor or Outdoor Event tools to report this.
• If you deliver a training course, use the Indoor Event tool to report this.

We will be holding some online drop-in sessions in February/March 2025. Your fund team manager will let you know when these are released and you can register to join the sesion. These sessions will allow you to bring specific questions about reporting to the Julie’s Bicycle team. Please register for an account on the Creative Climate Tools and start to submit some data before you join the session.

You can also contact the Julie’s Bicycle team with your questions.

We have developed the BFI Sustainable Screen Resource Hub with trainings, top tips and case studies of climate action from screen sector organisations.

You can also find more information by watching the recordings of the wider sector webinars that we delivered in year 1 of the programme.

• Climate Literacy
• Developing Environmental Priorities and Plans
• Getting to Grips with Environmental Performance and Progress