1. Introduction

In recent years, sustainability indexes have found their place in academic research and many industries, such as textiles, automobile, beauty, among many others. For some time, these sectors have felt the pressure from governments, academics and customer demand to modify their actions towards sustainable practices. Thus, it seems that in the 21st century, sustainability will define businesses and require consumers’ consciousness to embrace these new practices. This article understands the term as defined by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, which affirmed that sustainability is based on three pillars: Economic growth, ecological balance and social progress aligned with the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) put forward by UNESCO. The interrelationship and balance between these three spheres should be the starting point for action by governments, businesses and other supranational and micro-organizations. Nevertheless, the pillars and SDGs seem to have forgotten one main goal: Culture and its industry. Paradoxically, the media field, with its increasing dependence on viewing via devices, streaming platforms, and audio-visual repositories such as Netflix, Hulu, Filmin, HBO, and Disney + in television and cinema, and characterised by its grand façade of glamor, which usually tends toward excess ^[1] is one of the most polluting, carbon footprint-producing and socially unequal sectors ^[2][3][4]. A 2006 report from UCLA ^[5] reported that the audio-visual field emits the equivalent of about 1 million tons CO₂ into the atmosphere each year. Research on media sustainability has a long tradition of criticizing climate change and environmental issues, mainly through content ^[2] and while it is important to do so, it seems that the sector is oblivious to the impact that it itself generates. In terms of research, certain eclectic media ecology approaches have been taken, in various domains including those of moral crisis, technological dynamisms and planetary materialisms ^[6]. Hence, the audio-visual field fails to meet many sustainability indexes and lacks knowledge of what the sector itself generates. Many unsustainable practices are going unnoticed, from the misuse of natural resources (non-recyclable systems, overuse of energy on sets, overproduction of clothes and decorations, to mention but a few), enduring racism (like patanking, a type of common, broad, ultra-exaggerated South Asian accent that attempts to enfold thousands of languages and dialects into one single accent ^[7], whitewashing, and blackface), to ostensibly sexist behavior (the Me-Too movement) ^[8]. It is important to note that recent academic research focuses on power inequalities across class, gender, and race boundaries, ^[2] “but there is little if any sustained critical engagement with the more universal phenomenon of ecology” (p. 221).

2. Field of Action

2.1. Pre-Production