COMMITMENT TO A GREENER FUTURE

If companies take proactive steps to adopt sustainable approaches—from innovations through to lifestyle choices—they will help create an eco-friendly industry, says VMI’s Barry Bassett. 

Let’s face it, we all hate companies who are guilty of greenwashing and can easily tell when they pretend that they are acting in a responsible, sustainable way when they clearly are not. In contrast, VMI commits to sustainability and encourages employees to adopt sustainable lifestyles through incentives for plant-based diets and sustainable commuting and from achieving albert-certified carbon neutrality to initiating industry-wide eco-friendly practices. 

As you can only reduce what you measure, VMI has embarked on a concerted process of reviewing every aspect of the company’s processes, measuring and tweaking them to reduce the company’s carbon footprint by half in 2023 and receiving albert-certified carbon neutrality in 2022. 

Achieving carbon neutrality and net-zero commitment 

London has been a beacon for sustainability and runs a campaign funded by the London Mayor called the Business Futures Plus initiative, which focusses on supporting SMEs in transitional to net zero and which has funded over 500 companies to complete its programme.   

VMI was selected as one of the first 12 companies in the 2021 pilot study and from this, created our first net zero plan and formally signed up to committing to the ambitious goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2030 on the Government Business Climate Hub. 

Net-zero means emitting zero emissions, which for many companies is impractical today, so by creating a roadmap to reducing emissions eventually to net-zero and ‘offsetting’ to cancel-out the previous year’s emissions until this is achieved, is a responsible way to achieve this – but with so many bogus offsetting schemes available, how can you choose a good scheme? 

Happily, albert put their seal of approval on a select number of offset schemes to help companies achieve this, so by investing to offset our previous year’s emissions, in a Moroccan solar PV farm, where most electricity is currently derived from fossil fuels, gave VMI albert-certified carbon-neutral status for the first time in 2022. 

Another landmark was achieved in 2023, when VMI’s annual carbon emissions fell by half compared with its 2021 base year, demonstrating that a lot of small changes can have a large impact. 

Promoting sustainability in the film industry 

Aware that sustainability affected the entire industry, I chair a consortium of like-minded rental companies who meet four times per year, with the sole aim of sharing best practice in order to reduce industry carbon emissions and all findings are published on a public website. An important part of this is collaborating with suppliers to improve their product life cycles to reduce waste and with clients and competitors to drive sector-wide change.​ 

Renewable energy initiatives 

A cornerstone of VMI’s sustainability strategy is the adoption of renewable energy sources. All energy for our buildings are powered by a combination of energy from 100% renewable sources and also 55kW of solar panels that we have installed on our buildings. This has not only reduced reliance on non-renewable sources but enabled us to become a net exporter of electricity for four months every year, by generating and supplying more power to the grid than we consume. ​  

Switching waste providers to a firm who incinerates non-recyclable waste to produce energy helped the company to achieve nil-waste status in 2022. 

Transition to electric and hybrid vehicles 

TV equipment is bulky and heavy and this doesn’t lend itself to transport by EVs. In spite of this however, by November 2024, the majority of VMI’s vehicle vehicles had been replaced with pure electric or hybrid models, reducing diesel emissions by an estimated 60% compared to 2021 levels.   

Several of its staff have switched to using sustainable sources too, by virtue of tax-efficient cycle, e-bike and EV schemes that we promote. Last year, three staff converted to EVs and hybrids, which cut VMI’s Scope 3 CO2 emissions for 2024 by 43.48T.  This reduction reflects fewer petrol/diesel commutes, more remote workdays, and charging with renewable energy from its solar panels. 

Switching planes for trains 

Eliminating transatlantic long-haul flying to industry events and prioritising European instead of US events and travelling by train, VMI also adopted a policy whereby staff who haven’t flown privately during the previous 12 months, are granted an additional day’s leave to reward them for making climate-friendly choices. Not every team member does this but it is another method of helping to nudge staff in the right direction. 

Industry recognition 

It’s great to be recognised for doing the right thing but that wasn’t my motivation. In spite of this however, VMI’s sustainability efforts have received significant recognition – initially by the UK Government (Hero of Net Zero award at COP26 climate summit, 2021), by West London Business group (VMI Park Royal Company of the Year, 2022) and again in 2025 (West London SME Green Business of the Year).  ​ 

Transparent reporting and accountability 

Transparency is key. VMI has been publicly posting its annual carbon audit on its website since 2021 and submitting detailed emissions to the international Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), which is usually reserved only for large SMEs. It is easy to make proud declarations of a commitment to a sustainability journey but the hard bit is maintaining this momentum and keeping the commitment going.  

Sustainable steps to success 

Through a combination of renewable energy adoption, waste reduction, fleet modernisation, VMI’s 20-year sustainability journey demonstrates the power of proactive environmental stewardship as the company continues on its path towards net-zero emissions by 2030.