
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
Most recent headlines
09/11/2025
Dalet today announced a transformative leap forward for media operations: Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) that unifies the Dalet ecosystem under one natura...
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
16/09/2025
SVG All-Stars: Leigh Michaud, Manager, Remote Operations, ESPNThe UConn grad rose from ESPN's mailroom to become one of its most valuable ops leadersBy Bran...
16/09/2025
Live From IBC 2025: Friday's Latest From Halls 1-4, Outdoor Exhibits in Amst...
16/09/2025
Live From IBC 2025: Saturday's Latest From Halls 5-7 in Amsterdam By SVG Staff
Friday, September 12, 2025 - 17:00
Print This Story
The SVG Europe and ...
16/09/2025
Live From IBC 2025: Sunday's Latest From Halls 8-10 in Amsterdam By SVG Staff
Saturday, September 13, 2025 - 17:00
Print This Story
The SVG Europe and...
16/09/2025
Live From IBC 2025: Monday's Latest From Halls 11-14 in Amsterdam By SVG Staff
Sunday, September 14, 2025 - 17:00
Print This Story
The SVG Europe and ...
16/09/2025
Amazon Prime Video Picks Up Four Hours of Early-Round Masters Coverage in 2026By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Tuesday, September 16, 2025 - 10:15 a...
16/09/2025
VERSANT Inks Deal for League One Volleyball as Women's Sports Rights Slate G...
16/09/2025
ESPN VP, Corporate Communications, Katina Arnold Named SVP, Disney Advertising C...
16/09/2025
IBC 2025 in Review: SVG Europe's Full Collection of Video Interviews From th...
16/09/2025
Hace una d cada, la m sica latina representaba apenas el 8% de las reproducciones globales en Spotify. Hoy, constituye m s de una cuarta parte (27%) de toda la ...
16/09/2025
A decade ago, Latin music made up just 8% of global Spotify streams. Today, it a...
16/09/2025
Spotify is expanding our video lineup with a new partnership with Zoo 55, part of ITV Studios. For the first time, acclaimed content from ITV Studios is landing...
16/09/2025
At DSEI 2025, James Dunne of L3Harris Maritime UK chaired a panel on aligning the supply chain to the warfighter, where leaders discussed modernising support fo...
16/09/2025
Calrec has strengthened its collaboration with audio metering expert RTW by integrating RTW's new TMxCore metering platform across its full range of Argo IP...
16/09/2025
College Football Scores Top Telecast in August with 16M+ Viewers on FOX, Followe...
16/09/2025
Collaboration marks the first SSP integration of Gracenote IDs, enabling show-le...
16/09/2025
AMSTERDAM The organizers of IBC2025 are reporting that 43,858 visitors from more than 170 countries attended the event, which had more than 1,300 exhibitors and...
16/09/2025
Wooden Camera announces the release of its new Accessory Collection for the FUJIFILM GFX ETERNA 55. The highlights of this collection include vital power soluti...
16/09/2025
Anton/Bauer, a leading manufacturer of mobile power solutions for broadcast and cinematic equipment, has announced the launch of Anton/Bauer Fleet Management, a...
16/09/2025
Teradek, a leading provider of video transmission and live production solutions, today announced the launch of Prism Jetpack, a groundbreaking 5G video contribu...
16/09/2025
Astera, the leader in wireless LED lighting solutions, announces the ultra-versatile SolaBulb. Building on the success of the Astera bulb family, SolaBulb intro...
16/09/2025
As the world gathered at TED2025 to explore the provocative theme "Humanity Reimagined", Clear-Com , supported by NETGEAR networking infrastructure, delivered f...
16/09/2025
Bitfocus' Buttons platform celebrated as a catalyst for AV and broadcast convergence
Bitfocus has been named winner of the IABM Impact Award Pro AV Chan...
16/09/2025
Record entries and outstanding innovation celebrated at IBC2025 as the MediaTech community honors its leading people, projects and organizations
IABM announced...
16/09/2025
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation (SJC), a leading satellite operator and pay-TV provider in Japan, has partnered with H...
16/09/2025
Telestream congratulates Sky Group, which has been awarded the prestigious IBC Innovation Award for Content Distribution for its MediaMesh platform on Sunday, S...
16/09/2025
Leading space solutions company will use optical ground stations to deliver faster, more secure data from space
Luxembourg, September 15, 2025 - SES, a leading...
16/09/2025
NOVI, Mich. ENCO has unveiled Raptor, a cloud-based live streaming captioning encoder that injects the speed, power and reliability of real-time AI capabilities...
16/09/2025
NEW YORK Comcast NBCUniversal and NBCUniversal Local have announced that a total of $2.5 million has been awarded in 2025 to 69 nonprofit organizations servicin...
16/09/2025
AMSTERDAM Martin Euredjian has joined Atomos as director of advanced imaging and will lead innovation for advanced display technology....
16/09/2025
AMSTERDAM Calrec introduced a 48-faced Argo M and showcased its largest Argo software updates at the recently concluded IBC2025....
16/09/2025
AMSTERDAM Lawo introduced its HOME Audio Shuffler app, a replacement for a traditional baseband audio matrix within an IP-based Dynamic Media Facility, during t...
16/09/2025
CBS is reporting that the 77TH Emmy Awards hosted by Nate Bargatze on Sunday Sept. 14 was seen by more than 7.42 million viewers on the CBS Television Network a...
16/09/2025
Back to All News
Meet the Adversaries That Will Clash in Rulers of Fortune, a S...
16/09/2025
Back to All News
Would You Take 30 Million Baht from a Dead Persons Account? E...
16/09/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils the Official Trailer and Poster for She Walks ...
16/09/2025
Comscore Unveils The Scoreboard: An Interactive Destination Surfacing Consumer B...
15/09/2025
Steve Zahn, Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, and Janeane Garofalo star in Ben Stiller&...
15/09/2025
Global K-Pop sensation aespa is redefining what it means to be rich with the r...
15/09/2025
Every day, millions of people around the world turn to Spotify to enjoy the audi...
15/09/2025
After months of intensive planning and implementation, Brembo SGL Carbon Ceramic...
15/09/2025
A U.S. Marine launches a Javelin shoulder-fired anti-tank missile during a training exercise. (Photo credit: U.S. Marine Corps)...
15/09/2025
AMSTERDAM TV Tech has named its Best of Show Awards winners for IBC2025, which wraps up today. Entrants were judged by a panel of industry experts on the criter...
15/09/2025
Unique sports content orchestration platform builds momentum among SES's cus...
15/09/2025
Back to All News
Over 41 Million Global Viewers On Netflix Watch Terence Crawfo...
15/09/2025
Paris, France - September 15, 2025 -- Space42 (ADX: SPACE42), the UAE-based AI-p...
15/09/2025
Back to All News
The Great Flood' Teaser Trailer Previews A Gripping Struggle for Survival
Entertainment
15 September 2025
GlobalSouth Korea
Link copi...
15/09/2025
Back to All News
From Hardship to Hope: Typhoon Family' Presents a Tale of...