If you’ve experienced the all-electric trams for the Studio Tour at Universal Studios Hollywood, you’ve seen a glimpse of NBCUniversal’s sustainability strategy firsthand.
The World-Famous Studio Tour has a fleet of 21 trams that take you behind-the-scenes of the Universal Studios Lot, and the company is in the midst of converting the entire fleet to electric, reducing both emissions and noise during the tour. A video starring Al Roker, weather and feature anchor of NBC’s TODAY and Co-host, 3rd Hour of TODAY, welcomes you on-board with an overview of the electric trams.
According to Senior Director of Sustainability Strategy Audrey Vinant-Tang, what may seem like an experiential choice for the Studio Tour reflects a commitment to sustainability that has guided the organization for years.
Vinant-Tang sits at the forefront of Comcast NBCUniversal’s sustainability initiatives, driving the organization’s efforts to become carbon neutral by 2035 in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. Her team works with stakeholders across every facet of the business to fulfill the company’s roadmap to becoming carbon neutral. This includes implementing programs that range from installing more on-site solar to managing the NBCUniversal Sustainable Production Program, which was founded in 2009 to embed sustainability into directly produced film and TV.
While the organization’s environmental focus is nothing new, its carbon neutral ambitions can be traced back to 2021, when its parent company, Comcast Corporation, announced this new goal.
“Since [the announcement], it has been our mission to deliver on that objective, formalize a plan, have robust, transparent and auditable data that we can submit to demonstrate our performance, and have a strategy that we get top-down support for from our leaders to drive,” said VP of Operations, Engineering and Sustainability Matt Berbée.
As every branch of NBCUniversal works in tandem to accomplish this goal, the organization is measuring its progress along the way — and that’s where Director of Sustainability Data Solutions Manisha Sashital comes in. She leads a team that focuses on managing the company’s emissions data, offering the organization insight into where it is excelling and where improvements could be made.
All of these efforts bolster the company’s overarching sustainability strategy, which centers around three core workstreams: the buildings employees work in, TV and film productions, and theme parks. Implementing sustainable initiatives across each of these areas — and tracking each one’s success — is key to fulfilling NBCUniversal’s carbon neutral vision.
About NBCUniversal
A subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, NBCUniversal is a global media and entertainment company. In 2018, Comcast purchased UK-based Sky.
Surrounded by Sustainability
Earlier this year, the organization opened its renovated Los Angeles headquarters, which was created to be both community-focused and environmentally friendly. The new office space offers many amenities, including outdoor communal spaces that encourage open-air collaboration.
The new amenities building The Commons is certified LEED Platinum and the adjacent office building One Universal is on track for LEED Platinum, the highest certification level upheld by the U.S. Green Building Council. Buildings that attain Gold certification or higher are considered highly efficient in their use of energy, water, materials and other resources.
“To me, that’s one of the larger transformative elements that have been implemented and adopted by the business,” Berbée added.
Since 2019, the company has reduced enterprise carbon emissions by over 30 percent; a number that the team is focused on increasing over the next few years, Vinant-Tang noted. The company has been implementing on-site solar energy at more facilities and investing in off-site renewable energy in more regions, marking the switch to renewable energy as another significant component of its sustainable infrastructure initiatives.
Since 2019, the company has reduced enterprise carbon emissions by over 30 percent; a number that the team is focused on increasing over the next few years, Vinant-Tang noted.”
She added that this focus on green energy is reflected in the production side of the business, where solar energy is often used to power set trailers and equipment in addition to the use of hybrid and electric vehicles. All of these efforts across both the organization’s workplaces and production sites encompass the energy and emissions component of NBCUniversal’s sustainability strategy, bringing the organization one step closer to its carbon neutral goal.
Aligned By Committee
Vinant-Tang noted that, in order to maintain consistent progress across the organization, representatives from each division — NBCUniversal, Comcast and Sky — gather together through an Environment Operating Governance Committee. This group ensures that leaders across every business understand the organization’s sustainability strategy.
Lights, Camera — Inspire!
While renewable energy is critical to helping NBCUniversal hit its carbon neutral goal, there’s another valuable resource at play in the organization’s sustainability strategy: inspiration.
According to Vinant-Tang, the aim to inspire consumers shines through in many ways at the organization’s theme parks. The Studio Tour electric trams are just one example of these efforts; there are more obvious ones, such as the prevalence of recycling bins, water bottle refill stations and environmentally positive messaging.
The organization upholds various programs to further amplify these efforts, such as Universal’s GreenerLight Program, which is focused on incorporating sustainability across the entire filmmaking process, from script to screen. Vinant-Tang shared that this program makes it so that Universal Pictures, Focus Features and DreamWorks Animation titles build a sustainability plan that touches every aspect of production, from script development to set needs to distribution.
Sashital added that the organization promotes sustainability within its offices as well, offering environmentally-focused programming during Earth Month and beyond. The company also offers an employee affinity group called GREEN@NBCUniversal to host events and activities that raise awareness and connect employees with their local environment and community.
Find the Power in Being Green
The 2024 film Wicked was the first production to be greenlit under NBCUniversal’s GreenerLight Program — but the environmental focus didn’t stop once filming had completed. According to Vinant-Tang, through the GreenerLight Program, the film’s marketing campaign had sustainability videos, including a behind-the-scenes featurette with Director Jon M. Chu and Jeff Goldblum.
VIDEO EMBED: WICKED | Going Green Behind the Scenes: Sustainability on Wicked with Jon M. Chu and Jeff Goldblum
Measuring Progress — and Moving Forward Together
As NBCUniversal aims to become carbon neutral over the next 10 years, the organization is measuring its progress.
Sashital shared that her team’s primary goal is to ensure all of these actions can be backed up with data. This requires an annual data collection period, which usually spans the last quarter of the year and the first quarter of the following year, during which she and her peers speak with representatives from each of NBCUniversal’s business units to gather information on energy and fuel usage. Once this data is collected, she explained, it’s fed into the company’s carbon reporting tool, allowing her team to track, calculate, and report emissions.
Adhering to audit controls and QA processes, Sashital’s team ensures that emissions data is complete and accurate, and any nuances, such as a structural change at a facility, have been accounted for and properly documented. She shared that, once this granular level of reporting is completed, her team takes a step back to see how the organization’s emissions have evolved — and where are new areas of opportunity.
For Sashital, managing sustainability data at NBCUniversal includes working with peer companies to set standard methodologies and practices that drive the industry forward.
This dedication to driving change as a team is reflected across the organization, including from the very top. Berbée shares that the leadership team’s level of engagement and buy-in has been present throughout the organization’s sustainability journey.
“Here, senior leaders meet on a quarterly basis and are engaged, asking good questions and driving their teams to deliver on their goals — and that’s unique,” he said. “I think that’s something that’s very special about what we have here.”
“Here, senior leaders meet on a quarterly basis and are engaged, asking good questions and driving their teams to deliver on their goals — and that’s unique.”
NBCUniversal isn’t just focused on what can happen here and now. Rather, Vinant-Tang expressed, the organization aims to make a difference for decades to come, adding its own brushstrokes to the “bigger sustainability picture.”
