Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Attack Mode: Little Dot Studios on Developing a Successful Net-Zero Formula for Sports Production

18/08/2022

Attack Mode: Little Dot Studios on developing a successful net-zero formula for sports production By Will Strauss, Editor

Thursday, August 11, 2022 - 14:15

Print This Story

Photo: Andy Hone/LAT Images. Courtesy of Formula E

There is no industry that is taking [environmental sustainability] seriously enough. The industries that talk about it the most are the ones not doing enough. The media sector needs to be more aware of the role that it has both as a communicator but also operationally and logistically.

Strong words from Saunders Carmichael-Brown, a creative producer, digital presenter and, crucially, sustainability ambassador at All3Media-owned content agency and media network Little Dot Studios.

His job is to lead the company's drive to become a more responsible producer and distributor of sports content.

Speaking to SVG Europe earlier this month, he outlined the environmental sustainability efforts that the company has gone to so far, offered up some advice for others in similar situations, and detailed Little Dot's plans for the future.

While he acknowledges that the wider industry needs to up its game, he and Little Dot are certainly doing their bit.

Offsetting should always be the last resort. I am very aware. And I communicated it from the first meeting. Offsetting is plugging a hole. The priority is reduction.

In February, the company was verified as carbon neutral to Future Net Zero (FNZ) standard across its organisational and operational output, making it one of the first production companies to achieve that status. Not only that, it has increased its offsetting efforts to account for its historical emissions going all the way back to the company's inception in 2013.

Similarly, the company has signed onto the UN Sports For Climate Action Framework and is committed to using its voice in the sports sector to drive positive change and awareness on-screen as well as reduce emissions from its operations.

It also has strong links to sustainability-conscious sports, working with Formula E, Extreme E and most recently the eSkootr Championship. Which is no coincidence.

The company's aim, or certainly Carmichael-Brown's aim, is to become the go to' agency for electric and sustainability-conscious motorsport, and indeed other sports.

How did the company get to the position where they are recognised as a responsible agency? For Carmichael-Brown (pictured, above), it began quite small.

The sustainability angle started out as interest about four or five years ago, and then the interest became a passion and then an obsession, he says. And then I needed to study it and know the facts around it, in order to have a bit more of a comprehensive understanding of what it actually means and what progress is.

I was getting really frustrated with not being able to cut through greenwashing, for example, being manipulated and falling for the same traps.

In response, he did an 18-month global impact science course with the University of Pennsylvania. This provided him with science-based targets and the background story of what climate change really is, how the weather works and, crucially, how this is affecting economics around the world.

All I've been wanting to do since getting involved in this is find a way to make my impact greater and, if I can do that within a company [Little Dot], and one that is part of a new even bigger group [All3Media], it's a win-win.

It certainly dovetailed nicely with Little Dot CEO Dan Jones' desire to establish a sustainability vision for the agency.

Little Dot already had a really good social sustainability policy in terms of hiring and in terms of staff culture, continues Carmichael-Brown. So I was focused on sorting out the carbon impact.

I spent about six months going around every different angle of the business, talking to different teams and finding out how their operations work and then from that assessing where the emissions were

This included a wide variety of facets from office power, employee initiatives and ways of working, to how its productions are created and facilitated.

Then it was about calculating that impact, he continues. I tried to do this myself for a long time but I realised that the way that this works in terms of hitting any achievement targets, such as accreditation or evaluation, you need third parties.

They know the process, and you can save a lot of time and kind of streamline the process. So I got a third party involved [called Inteb] and they helped me get more accurate readings, and helped me to look at some things that I hadn't thought about or hadn't considered. Then we built an incredibly accurate emissions [report].

Extreme E: An AFC Energy container during the Desert X-Prix at AlUla in AlUla, Saudi Arabia

Photo by Sam Bloxham / LAT Images

And from then it was about understanding, firstly, where the key impact areas were. Travel is huge. But because Little Dot Studios work is content and channel management and digital reappropriation of existing content, as well as production, it actually means the operational missions were far greater the production emissions.

The first goal, therefore, was to achieve carbon neutrality. They scoped it out based on 2020.

Working with this third party, we were able to achieve carbon neutrality for 2020 and when we had the figures back we had an understanding of the emissions and the month-by-month breakdown, so we knew how and where to make improvements for this year and next year and the years that followed.

But, for Carmichael-Brown, that wasn't enough. Which is where the idea for going back to the launch of the company came from.

It didn't feel like a big enough learning curve. I didn't feel that we were holding ourselves accountable for the impact we had. We decided to get as much infor
LINK: https://www.svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/attack-mode-little-dot-studio...
See more stories from svg

North America Stories

27/03/2026

FCC Opposes Emergency Motion to Stay Nexstar/Tegna Merger

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

27/03/2026

NAB Pans Netflix's Coverage of MLB Opening Day

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

27/03/2026

2026 NAB Show Exhibitor Insight: Netgear

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

27/03/2026

Marshall Electronics Showcases New Feature-Rich CV320 and CV520 IP and 3G-SDI POV Cameras at NAB 2026

Marshall Electronics Showcases New Feature-Rich CV320 and CV520 IP and 3G-SDI PO...

27/03/2026

Sony Electronics Inc. Elevates Professional Video Workflows with Powerful Updates to Monitor & Control and Catalyst Tools

Sony Electronics Inc. Elevates Professional Video Workflows with Powerful Update...

27/03/2026

GatesAir Extends AirWatch365 Managed Service with Edge Gateway Site Appliance

GatesAir Extends AirWatch365 Managed Service with Edge Gateway Site Appliance Brie Clayton March 27, 2026 0 Comments NAB marks global launch of servic...

27/03/2026

GatesAir Expands AirWatch365 Managed Service

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

27/03/2026

Dejero, Eutelsat, Others to Offer 'Field to Air' Demo at NAB Show

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

27/03/2026

Global NextGen TV Takes Center Stage at 2026 NAB Show

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

27/03/2026

USSI Global Opens Media Transport Solutions Lab

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

27/03/2026

Net Insight Elevates Nimbra Edge to Govern Live Media Sys...

At NAB Show 2026, Net Insight will showcase the next evolution of Nimbra Edge, its orchestration and control layer designed to manage live media services across...

27/03/2026

Harmonic Delivers Winning Live Sports Streaming Innovatio...

Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced powerful new innovations that further elevate the company's sports streaming solution. The advanced capabilities enh...

27/03/2026

Bitmovin s Player Web X Expands with Performance First Ad...

Bitmovin, the leading provider of video streaming solutions, today announced significant new capabilities for Player Web X, its next-generation web video player...

27/03/2026

CS live Builds Future Ready OB Van With Riedel MediorNet...

Riedel Communications today announced that Czech-based production company CS live has equipped its newest outside broadcast (OB) van with an integrated Riedel i...

27/03/2026

MPTS 2026 Unveils First Wave of Speakers Featuring BBC Sk...

130 Industry Experts Confirmed as Show Celebrates its 10th Anniversary MPTS, the UK's largest and most influential event for the media, production and tech...

27/03/2026

Grass Valley and NVP Elevate LALIGA Broadcast Production...

Grass Valley today announced the successful completion of a major live production deployment with NVP, a leading European media company specializing in live spo...

27/03/2026

Appear Business Momentum Drives Leadership in Live Produc...

Showcases resilient solutions for satellite-to-IP migration, REMI and hybrid live production Appear ASA (Appear, OSE:APR), a global leader in live production t...

27/03/2026

Lightware MX2 delivers rock-solid 4K60 HDMI 10-bit signal...

San Francisco, California, March 2026 - Microsoft Ignite, a major annual conference hosted by Microsoft for developers, IT professionals, partners and business ...

27/03/2026

Clear-Coms EQUIP Wireless System Keeps Youth With A Missi...

Clear-Com is proud to highlight its support for worship teams through professional communication solutions, with the deployment of its EQUIP wireless system a...

27/03/2026

Orban Collaborates with Sage on Virtualized EAS Technology Demo

Orban Collaborates with Sage on Virtualized EAS Technology Demo Brie Clayton March 26, 2026 0 Comments Sage Alerting Systems (SAS), in cooperation wit...

27/03/2026

Berklee Alums Bring GIANT to Broadway

Berklee Alums Bring GIANT to Broadway Brian and Dayna Lee BM '13 met and fell in love at Berklee, and now their production companys first Broadway debut i...

26/03/2026

Audio-Technica and Extron Announce Microsoft Teams-Certified Enterprise Solutions

Extron and Audio-Technica have announced that their Design Solutions devices, Ce...

26/03/2026

SPORTEL Asia Returns to Singapore with 370 Participants from 35 Countries

SPORTEL Asia took place March 24-25 at the Orchard Hotel Singapore, drawing 370 participants representing more than 220 companies from 35 countries. Approximate...

26/03/2026

NAB 2026: LTN to Showcase Satellite-to-IP Migration Solutions

LTN will demonstrate satellite-to-IP migration solutions for broadcasters, cable networks, MVPDs, and station groups at NAB Show 2026 (Booth W2100). The C-Ban...

26/03/2026

Seattle Mariners Upgrade Center Field Video Display at T-Mobile Park with Daktronics

The Seattle Mariners have partnered with Daktronics to install an upgraded outfi...

26/03/2026

Esports Nations Cup 2026 Names National Team Partners Across 100+ Countries

The Esports Foundation (EF) has awarded National Team Partner status to organizations and individuals across more than 100 countries and territories for the Esp...

26/03/2026

NAB 2026: Telestream Expands Vantage Integration with Adobe Premiere, Media Encoder, and Frame.io

Telestream has announced expanded integration between its Vantage workflow platf...

26/03/2026

NAB 2026: FOR-A Brings Nippon TV's viztrick AiDi AI Production Tool to Market with NVIDIA

FOR-A Corporation has announced a partnership with Nippon TV and NVIDIA to distr...

26/03/2026

CBS Sports Reaches New Long-Term Multiplatform Rights Agreement with the WNBA

CBS Sports and the WNBA have expanded their partnership through a new long-term, multiplatform rights agreement. CBS Sports will feature up to 20 regular-season...

26/03/2026

Zac Brown Band to Perform Sunday Night Baseball Open on NBC and Peacock

Zac Brown Band will star in the Sunday Night Baseball show open on NBC and Peacock, NBC Sports announced. The open was filmed at American Family Field, home of ...

26/03/2026

2026 MLB Season Opens With Full Slate of National Games

Major League Baseball opens the 2026 season with nationally televised games across multiple media partners. Fans can visit MLB.com/Watch for a complete schedule...

26/03/2026

DIRECTV Adds Nine MLB Team Channels for 2026 Season

DIRECTV has announced an agreement to carry nine new MLB-operated team channels, covering the Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Tigers (Detroit SportsNet), Kansas City R...

26/03/2026

Nationals.TV Now Available on Charter, Comcast, Cox, DIRECTV, Verizon Fios and More

Nationals.TV, the Washington Nationals' local broadcast channel, is now avai...

26/03/2026

MLB.TV Launches on the ESPN App Starting Opening Day

Starting Thursday, March 26, MLB.TV will be available on the ESPN App, giving fans access to more than 2,000 out-of-market regular season games. Fans can also r...

26/03/2026

Why YEP Changed My Career (And Why It Might Change Yours)

By Matt Klein Hello to everyone reading this - whether you're a current YEP, HPA member, or just YEP-curious. I'm Matt Klein, one of the co-chairs of t...

26/03/2026

CBS Sports Inks New WNBA Deal

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

26/03/2026

Apogee Insight Acquires PMA Research

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

26/03/2026

NBC Announces Exclusive Coverage of Sail4th 250 Tall Ships in NYC

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

26/03/2026

UK Group of media tech companies take the spotlight at NA...

28 participating companies, from start-ups to blue-chips, lead the UK Group as part of the GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland presence across all the Halls at N...

26/03/2026

Arkona Unveils BLADE//planner and Major Usability Enhancements at NAB 2026

Arkona Unveils BLADE//planner and Major Usability Enhancements at NAB 2026 Brie Clayton March 26, 2026 0 Comments New graphical configuration tool and...

26/03/2026

Bitfocus showcases complete control at NAB Show 2026

Bitfocus showcases complete control at NAB Show 2026 Brie Clayton March 26, 2026 0 Comments Continuing development drives advances in security, availa...

26/03/2026

Allen Media Group To Deploy Anoki ContextIQ

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

26/03/2026

LG Announces New Premium FAST Channels

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

26/03/2026

IABM to Host Breakfast Event at 2026 NAB Show

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

26/03/2026

Nexstar Defends Tegna Deal in Calif. Court Filing

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

26/03/2026

Nevion introduces powerful new Panel Builder to enhance VideoIPath broadcast control capability

Nevion introduces powerful new Panel Builder to enhance VideoIPath broadcast con...

26/03/2026

2026 Oscar Nominated Films Powered by Blackmagic Design

2026 Oscar Nominated Films Powered by Blackmagic Design Brie Clayton March 25, 2026 0 Comments DaVinci Resolve Studio used on 27 of this year's no...

26/03/2026

Leader to present full suite of advanced Test & Measurement solutions at NAB Show 2026

Leader to present full suite of advanced Test & Measurement solutions at NAB Sho...

26/03/2026

Boston Conservatory to Present New England and Collegiate Premiere of Groundbreaking Opera Time to Act

Boston Conservatory to Present New England and Collegiate Premiere of Groundbrea...

26/03/2026

Have a Wish Worth Dying For? Netflix's First Korean YA Horror Series If Wishes Could Kill' Premieres April 24

Back to All News Have a Wish Worth Dying For? Netflix's First Korean YA Hor...