Carbon-neutral hire since 2022 Download PDF of VMI’s Sustainability Statement for Albert Compliance As an Albert-certified, Carbon-neutral organisation, our commitment to reducing our negative environmental impact and building a more socially equitable company is one that we take very seriously. As such, we are totally committed to becoming a Net-Zero company by 2030 and making the industry a better place for all. Read our Sustainability Statement here to find out why hiring from VMI is climate-neutral.See our 20 year timeline history of sustainability, which saw the UK Government recognise our efforts at COP26 in 2021 with a special award, Hero of Net Zero. VMI’s fourth carbon audit for 2023 has been published by an Albert-approved consultancy and invested in an approved offsetting scheme for the second year in a row to ensure that VMI is officially Carbon Neutral since 2022. Visit VMI’s Published Carbon Audits. Read our VMI’s Environment and Sustainability Statement. Read SME guide to reducing carbon footprint
Sustainable Film Competition CALLING ALL SUSTAINABLY MINDED FILMMAKERS! Our sustainability film competition was so successful last year, that VMI and Sustainable Film decided to repeat it again this year, offering a prize to … Read more
4-Years In, VMI On Track to Net-Zero-By-2030 VMI’s journey to net-zero started in 2021 with a commitment to reach net-zero by 2030. By 2023, VMI had already reduced its emissions by over 50% from 2019 levels, achieving Carbon Neutral status in 2022 as an Albert-certified supplier. VMI has since offset emissions through projects like the Brazilian Rainforest and a Moroccan Solar PV farm. The company also transitioned to 100% renewable energy, installed 55KW of solar panels, and began exporting power in 2023. VMI eliminated single-use plastics, adopted biodegradable materials, and transitioned most of its vehicle fleet to EVs by 2024. This dedication has earned multiple awards, including Hero of Net Zero. The 2023 CO2 audit shows VMI is just 0.7tCO2e above its 2030 target, aligning with the SME Climate Hub’s reduction pathway. Crucially though, VMI remains on track to achieve net-zero by 2030. Source VMI 2023 Carbon Audit, prepared by CreativeZero and approved by Albert. Read more
VMI featured in new Sustainability Guide VMI featured in new Sustainability Guide, compiled by ACrew4U | cre8tiveBank and in partnership with evcom. This is a comprehensive 68 page sustainability guide for all companies, taking the reader from the whys of sustainability implementation and change processess and best-practice. Best of all, it is easy to read and features useful graphics and easy to understand concepts written in a sensible pragmatic style. Bill Mountain of ACrew4U told me that he was sufficiently impressed with VMI’s decarbonisation success, that he wanted to VMI as a case study, which features on page 28! Thanks Bill for the plug! Download your copy here Read more
VMI Posts 2023 Carbon Audit on Global CDP Platform We are excited to report that VMI submitted the detailed results of its 2023 carbon audit for the 2024 round of CDP global environmental disclosures. Each year CDP supports thousands of companies, cities, states and regions to measure and manage their risks and opportunities on climate change, water security and deforestation. They do so at the request of their investors, purchasers and city stakeholders and VMI is proud to post all of its findings with CDP for worldwide public scrutiny. Read more
VMI runs 2nd Bootcamp helping youngsters join TV industry For the second year in a row, courtesy of funding from the DfE and Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership and with generous sponsorship from SEGRO, training provider The JGA Group and … Read more
VMI is Accredited Living Wage Employer for 7 Years Back in June 2017, VMI became a certified Living Wage Employer, as it ensured that our staff could earn a wage which the Living Wage Foundation calculated would be enough to live on. We are proud of the decision that we took and this echos our values today. Read more
VMI Awards Best Short Film at KIFF 2024 Karen Bryson’s film “Monochromatic” won the VMI Best Short Film award at the Kingston International Film Festival (KIFF) in June 2024. VMI has been a proud partner of KIFF since … Read more
VMI Featured as Climate Change Champion by UN It is great to be recognised for doing what we consider to be the right thing. Here is an article written by the United Nations Network on Climate Change on … Read more
Gabrielle Alexander-Wolfe Wins VMI Award for Best Cinematography at University of Portsmouth The University of Portsmouth proudly announces that Gabrielle Alexander-Wolfe has been awarded the annual VMI Award for Best Cinematography for 2024. Gabrielle’s exceptional work on the regency short film Until … Read more
VMI Bristol Celebrates 1st Diesel-Free Anniversary VMI Bristol have been running two x EVs and celebrated their first diesel-free anniversary in April 2024. Bristol’s two EVs drove 32K miles and saved an estimated 9.5 metric tonnes of CO2 last year, which represented more than 10% of our annual emissions. These saved an estimated 9.5 metric tonnes of CO2 last year and being charged mainly from our solar panels, or from fully sustainable sources, makes Bristol deliveries effectively net zero! Read more
VMI Sponsors ‘Green Line’ to travel to IBC by Eurostar VMI is pleased to sponsor The Flint’s Green Line initiative to encourage other visitors travelling to this year’s IBC exhibition in Amsterdam in September to use the Eurostar and avoid using air travel. For tickets and partnerships, contact nhmowman@theflint.media Read more
VMI wins Gold Award for 2023 Carbon Reduction from Ecologi Ecologi announced on Earth Day (22 April), that their judging panel had awarded VMI with a Gold Award for its carbon reduction successes. Ecologi is a passionate climate platform, who … Read more
VMI Albert-Certified Carbon-Neutral for 2023 For the second year in a row, VMI becomes Albert-Certified Carbon-Neutral by offsetting its 79.8T of Carbon emissions generated in 2022, in an Albert-Approved Scheme to build a solar panel power station in Morocco following the results of an online survey of its staff and clients over which scheme to invest in, run by Ecology. Read more
VMI Cuts Carbon Emissions for Third Year by 36% on 2022 VMI recently celebrated a significant achievement in its sustainability journey, as revealed in its latest carbon audit by Creative Zero. After three years of dedicated efforts to reduce its carbon footprint, VMI surpassed expectations with a remarkable 36% reduction in its operational carbon footprint in 2023 compared to 2022. VMI’s carbon emissions have actually decreased by more than half from its new 2021 base year of 213T to 78T in 2023. These numbers, meticulously calculated in accordance with SBTi guidelines, reflect VMI’s dedication to surpassing industry standards and driving meaningful change in sustainability practices. Download full report Read more
Vote for VMI Offset Scheme for 2023 Climate Neutrality VMI’s plans to offset the 105T of CO2e carbon carbon emissions generated in 2023 an Albert-certified offset scheme run by Ecology and we are inviting our clients, staff and other stakeholders to vote on which scheme they prefer. Last year, VMI surveyed its staff and clients to select an Albert-certified offset scheme, and a nature-based scheme was overwhelmingly voted for, which resulted in VMI investing in a project to preserve the Brazilian Rainforest to avoid deforestation over a 30 year project lifetime. Vote for whichever scheme you like best and VMI will pay to offset its entire 2023 emissions to become climate neutral for another year. VOTE NOW! Read more
Flint Media Publishes VMI Guide to Starting Your Sustainability Journey Unbelievably, Neil Howman of On-line Publisher, Flint Media, was so impressed with the sustainability efforts of VMI, that they asked whether we could help them to create a 10 page guide to helping companies start their sustainability Journey. This free guide is available to download here Read more
VMI runs Bootcamp to help youngsters join TV industry Courtesy of funding from DfE and sponsorship from SEGRO, VMI and JGA ran a six-Week Skills Bootcamp in early 2024 to further develop and support aspiring individuals keen to understand what it takes to be a production assistant and thrive in the Film and TV entertainment industry. Read more
VMI SUSTAINABILITY FEATURES 5-PAGES IN ZERB We were thrilled when Zerb, the official magazine of the GBCT, chose to profile VMI’s climate-friendly actions in a 5-page case study in their Spring edition of the quarterly Zerb Magazine. It is great when doing the right thing is recognised to be a good thing too! Read more
The Winners Announced – Sustainable Film Competition With the backdrop of a challenging year in 2023 for the film industry, VMI and Sustainable Film arranged a competition to offer two productions the opportunity to win camera and grip equipment for free. The focus was on films with sustainability messages or female-led crew, promoting inclusivity and environmental consciousness. After a rigorous judging process, the winners were announced in two categories: “She’s Got This” and “Sustainability Film.”, which will commence production to complete their films by end March 2024. Read more
VMI Sustainability in the News Definition Magazine ran a full page feature on VMI and its sustainability initiatives this month. Read more
VMI 2023 Client Survey – great results In December 23/January 2024, we held our 16th annual client satisfaction survey, asking all VMI clients who had hired from us in the previous 12 months exactly what they thought … Read more
What company has their own compost heap? VMI! We have been recycling all of our bio waste for some years but Bristol, has gone one better and recycle all food waste with their own compost heap. Gary, the Branch Manager, told me that in fairness, a local badger eats most of what they put in but I retorted that this is still 100% recycling without any diesel required for food waste collection, so it works for me! Read more
VMI Publishes Sustainability Film VMI publishes a short film to show our approach to sustainability and how we have reengineered our business to become an Albert-approved Carbon-Neutral rental company since 2022. We know that Carbon Neutrality isn’t the same as Net-Zero but we are completely committed to achieving Net-Zero Carbon Emissions by 2030 and this is a process that we are winning. Sincere thanks to Ian, Michael, Paula, Jonathan, Michael, Mike, Gary, Narvir and EVERYONE who contributed to the making of this real team effort. Read more
VMI awards Best Shorts award at KIFF 2023 VMI loves to support new entrants to the industry and after a successful inaugural Kingston International Film Festival (KIFF) in June 2022, VMI are proud to be continuing their support as a partner of KIFF for this year’s festival. VMI again sponsored the Best Short Film category at the festival which ran 23 – 25 June in Kingston upon Thames. Read more
VMI SPONSORS CINEMATOGRAPHY 2023 AWARD AT PORTSMOUTH UNIVERSITY VMI are proud to have supported the University of Portsmouth for some years, since Ben Thompson, the Principal Lecturer of the Film School, actually used to work at VMI – admittedly it WAS a long time ago (even in the last century) but the connection remains today! We sponsored the Best Cinematography award which this year was awarded to William Thurlby for his work on the short film Bracia (Brothers). Read more
VMI is recognised by Science Based Targets Initiative as on target for Net Zero by 2030 VMI’s emissions targets have been recognised by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) website and partners’ website We Mean Business as being on target to our Net Zero by 2030 commitment. The SBTi exist to lead the way to a zero-carbon economy, boost innovation and drive sustainable growth by setting ambitious, science-based emissions reduction targets. Read more
VMI has been a Living Wage Employer for 6-years Back in June 2017, VMI became a certified Living Wage Employer, as it ensured that our staff could earn a wage which the Living Wage Foundation calculated would be enough to live on. We are proud of the decision that we took and this echos our values today. Read more
May ’23 – VMI Becomes Net Power Exporter May 2023 was the first month when VMI became a net exporter of power. In May 2023, VMI imported 2,307KWh of power from the grid but with 55KW of solar PV panels installed, actually exported 2,788KWh, so between London and Bristol, became a net exporter of 481KWh to the grid and June was even better, exporting 1.06MWh of power. Read more
Company Wood-burning Pizza Experience VMI company wood-burning pizza-experience day, May 2023, which was a real effort, for which a lot of fun was had by all and a lot of pizzas were consumed too! Barry, the Managing Director, made the sourdough bases and tomato sauce for 25 pizzas and also cooked the pizzas, Chau did the shopping and both Chau & Rosie helped with the setup, prep and the clear up and thanks to the entire team for making it such a great experience! Special thanks to Ruben for making a great video, so that we can remember it so well! Read more
VMI Supports RA Futures Programme VMI continues to support the RA Agency Futures Program by offering space and equipment to aid training to help them with their aim of identifying and developing black female talent in the scripted camera department. Here is camera Operator Teresa Adamson, delivering the second camera building workshop for trainee Iman Ahmed, through the RA Agencies FUTURES program with the support of VMI to familiarise her with operation of the ARRI Alexa Mini LF. Iman is now ready for trainee positions and we couldn’t recommend her enough. Please see Iman’s profile here and to find out more about RA Agency and the Futures Program: www.ra-agency.online. Read more
First Short Films Shot by WLC Students using VMI donated ARRI Alexa Camera kit Sometimes, two organisations can help each other and both feel that they have achieved the best deal and VMI’s long-standing collaboration with West London College is one of those rare examples. Here is a film representing the first collaboration between West London College, VMI.TV and West London University. A series of four films were made using the full ARRI Alexa camera kit donated by VMI and fittingly, focus on sustainability and world peace. Watch Film Read more
VMI has our own Brazilian Rainforest (really!) This is not quite as crazy as it sounds but there genuinely is a region of Brazilian rainforest which we have paid to be caretakers of, as part of an Albert-certified CO2e offsetting scheme, to help us achieve Albert-approved Carbon neutral status since 2022. Read all about the project Read more
London Building Solar expanded to 40KW VMI’s London HQ building which was fitted with a 10KW Solar PV array in 2022, has been expanded to 40KW in April 2023 in order to cope with the substantial number of EVs used by its team to commute, having ditched their diesels. It will also help with VMI’s EV vans which are expected to arrive in 2024. Even with EVs, 40KW is a more power than the London branch uses ever uses at peak time and since our surplus is now being sold to the grid, we will in some small way help fortify Britain’s green power generation. Read more
VMI now showing the Carbon Saved on Quotes As a carbon-neutral company, we thought that it might be fun to calculate and show our clients just how much carbon they were saving. We use the CO2e/£1m ratio to estimate the carbon emission for an order which now appears on every quote. Read more
VMI IS ALBERT-CERTIFED CARBON NEUTRAL VMI paid to offset our 121.4T of CO2e carbon emissions generated in 2022 to invest in a project to preserve the Brazilian Rainforest to avoid deforestation over a 30 year project lifetime. In doing so, VMI has become an Albert-certified Carbon-Neutral company, since 2022. VMI surveyed its staff and clients to select an Albert-certified offset scheme, and a nature-based scheme was overwhelmingly voted for. We know that being carbon neutral is not the same as achieving net-zero but in supporting approved offset schemes, we are taking a further positive step towards making positive contributions to the environment while actively eliminating waste and carbon emissions from our activities. Read more
VMI Publishes its third Carbon Audit VMI has completed its third Carbon audit, which confirms that CO2 emissions have reduced for a 3rd year and are now at half of 2019 levels, two full years ahead of schedule from 213T CO2e to 121.4T CO2e, a reduction of 48.12% compared to the 2019 baseline and a 43% saving from 2021. (source: VMI 2022 Carbon Audit) Creative Zero scrutinised all of VMI’s measurements to create a very accurate assessment of VMI’s emissions for the entire 2022 financial year, which included surveying its staff for commuting methods and checking whether the power used at home came from sustainable sources. VMI began its net-zero campaign back in 2021 and committed to halving its 2019 CO2 emissions by 2025 and achieving net-zero by 2030 Read more
Robert Grooms, winner of the UoP Best Cinematography Award sponsored by VMI, shooting with his rental prize Robert Grooms is a talented cinematographer who graduated from the University of Portsmouth in 2022, having won their Best Cinematography prize for his work on the dystopian film, frequency. The prize included a £1,000 voucher for equipment hire from VMI, which Rob is using to shoot his next short film. Well done Rob and we look forward to seeing you in the future! Read more
VMI hosts local students for an Insight Day VMI hosted 20 students from across 7 different West London Colleges to attend an insight day at VMI. Business studies and Media studies students were given a tour and attended a Phantom super-slow motion demonstration. Read more
VMI Halves Carbon Emissions since 2019 VMI has completed its third Carbon audit, which confirms that CO2 emissions have reduced for a 3rd year and are now at half of 2019 levels, two full years ahead of schedule. It’s worth noting that VMI has managed to reduce their scope 3 emissions, while also increasing the scope 3 boundary for this reporting year. Read more
Bristol Building Solar expanded to 15KW VMI’s Bristol building which was fitted with a 10.6KW Solar PV array in 2022, has been expanded to 15KW in March 2023 in order to provide the majority of it’s power requirements, specifically to cope with the introduction of EVs to the Bristol branch. Even with EVs, 15KW is a lot more power than the Bristol branch is likely to use except at peak times and since our surplus is now being sold to the grid, we will in some small way help fortify Britain’s green power generation. Read more
VMI is awarded Highly Commended in West London Business Awards 2023 VMI, a has been awarded Highly Commended for Park Royal Business of the Year and named a finalist for Race To Zero Company of the Year in the West London Business awards 2023. The recognition was given in response to the company’s efforts to galvanize the industry around net-zero targets. Read more
VMI profiled in Ealing news for 2023 West London Business Awards Read an article published in the Ealing News about VMI being shortlisted for this years West London Business Awards in two categories: Green Race to Zero Business and Park Royal Business of the Year. Read more
Free Introductory Lighting Courses Run VMI hosted a one day introductory course in February for anyone in the industry wanting to know more about lighting and specifically, learning how to light. The course was given by Lighting Camera Operator Anthony Wood to be a really hands-on day of people collaborating and working together to light interview setups with a lot of different lights. A repeat of the course is planned for later in 2023. Read more
5 years of Wellness Days at VMI As a monthly treat, VMI arranges for a masseuse to visit VMI in Acton on the last Tuesday of the month to give a personal massage to consenting staff. It is a popular tradition which we started back in 2018. It is a both a bit of fun and luxury too, with soft lighting and calming music to accompany their massage and I know that we all look forward to our 20 minutes of ‘me-time’ every month! Read more
Josh Barker passes his Camera-Tech Apprenticeship After 2.5 years of planning to design a new apprenticeship standard, 3 apprentices started the scheme with VMI in August 2021. Fast forward 18-months and our first Apprentice, Josh Barker, received notification that he had passed his end-point assessment on 31 January 2023. Josh joins our staff as a camera technician on the Living Wage and is now on his way to achieving Senior Technician standard. Well Done, Josh! Read more
VMI Sponsors Year 2 of KIFF Film Festival VMI loves to support new entrants to the industry and is a founder member of a brand new film festival which started last year. The Kingston International Film Festival aims to celebrate a diverse range of established and emerging talent and provide a terrific boost to the UK TV & Film Industry and as it is held in the UK, you can easily visit without boarding a plane!. Even better is that they are awarding a prize to both fund and produce a winning short film, so this is definitely one film festival to take seriously! Apply now. Submission closes 28 April 2023 Read more
VMI Supports Roundhouse Young Filmmakers VMI has been a long been a supporter of young filmmakers by providing discounted equipment for the Roundhouse Young Creatives Group, who help new entrants to the industry to learn practical production skills. During the course of 2022, they were busy shooting a whole flurry of short films for the Roundhouse Film Fund and VMI Director, Stuart Neate was really impressed with the quality of their work when he attended the final screening and prize-giving event at the Roundhouse in December 2022. Read more
2022 VMI Annual Client Survey – Best Ever Results In December/January 2023, we held our 15th annual client satisfaction survey, asking all VMI clients who had hired from us in the previous 12 months exactly what they thought about … Read more
VMI supports 3 new film makers to make a film VMI sponsors Casa creative studios scheme to support three filmmakers from under-represented backgrounds to help to make three films. VMI are supplying a camera equipment package to launch this new scheme to present a £10,000 fund to shoot a film in a day scheme for new film makers. Apply here – deadlline 23 Jan 2023 Read more
Building a circular economy into every business We all like the idea of sustainable business and sustainable living but what about adopting sustainable techniques in an office? This is how we managed to transform 2 offices for a building project, whilst saving money and reusing all of our materials. Read more
VMI is Double Winner at 2022 West London Business Awards VMI Named West London Company of the Year For Leading On Climate Change The actions and leadership of VMI and its Managing Director in galvanizing the industry around net zero targets have been recognised by West London Business. VMI have won two prestigious awards at the West London Business Awards. It is named West London Company of the Year 2022 while MD Barry Bassett won Business Leader of the Year. Read more
VMI’s Christmas-themed New Products Day was a great success We arranged an amazing event in early December 2022, which was superbly received, attended by several hundred visitors and above all, was great fun! Instead of a full account, the video and pictures tell the story best of all! Read more
VMI Eliminates Plastic Waste from Cleaning Products A year into committing to use Splosh as a supplier of cleaning products, VMI has all but eradicated plastic waste from bottles and cartons. Splosh manufacture environmentally-friendly hand soap, dishwasher tablets and other cleaning materials and supply refill pouches which are themselves returnable for reuse, thus saving plastic waste by a whopping 90%. Here is a bundle of hand soap dispensers ready for returning and refilling. You might be interested to hear that Splosh even donate 10p to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation charity for each pouch returned to them! Read more
Bristol’s 1st EV arrives The supply chain issues post-COVID has meant that Bristol has been waiting a full year for their first of two EV to arrive with their electric van expected to arrive by Christmas. Bristol’s 10.5KW solar panels will help to realise emissions-free deliveries. Read more
Excellent Bristol Lighting Event Held in October VMI held a very successful lighting event at the brand-new Boomsatsuma studios in Brislington, Bristol on 25 October 2022. Read more
VMI Implements using Potato Starch Bags for Sealing Filters After widespread experimentation with different materials, VMI finally took delivery of its first bags made entirely of potato starch which break down in a regular consumer compost bin within 3-months. VMI will use these to seal filters and some other items to minimise its environmental impact. Read more
How A Supportive Team Say Farewell Many people have described working at VMI as feeling a bit like being in a family (without the seasonal discord bit at Christmas…). Well, we think that this is quite descriptive and thought that a picture of the team saying goodbye to Henderson (front second on right) tells the story well. Henderson has been commuting daily from Bexley in Kent to Acton and after 18 months, has found himself somewhere closer to work but as you can see from the team’s faces, he will be missed! Read more
VMI Shortlisted for ProMoviemaker Rental Company of the Year Pro MovieMaker Magazine has written this terrific article on VMI’s environmental crusade as a reason for shortlisting VMI for their Gear of the Year award, entitled, “A Company with a Conscience”. Read more
Sustainable Dog There has been a lot of research demonstrating the positive impact that pets can have on staff, just by being in the workplace. So if you visit VMI in Acton, you might just see Paula’s dog – here sporting a VMI cap – doing his thing to keep VMI a happy place!. Read more
VMI sponsors Cinematography award at Portsmouth University One of our favourite sayings is that ‘Everyone got to where they are today, from where they were yesterday’ – even Steven Spielberg was a student at one time! VMI … Read more
VMI’s solar panels save over 4T CO2 in June 22 VMI’s solar panels in London and Bristol generated 1.05MWh in June 2022, saving an estimated 4.46T of CO2. This is the equivalent of 2 people flying return from London to Las Vegas! (We use a 100% green electricity tariff anyway but it is great to know that our solar panels are already making a measurable difference). Read more
VMI Hosts Successful Ronin 4D Workshops VMI continues with is new post-COVID 2022 workshop season with three bespoke Ronin 4D workshops held at West London College’s Studio in Ealing Green and also at the Cleveland Arms … Read more
VMI Books Eurostar to Visit IBC in Amsterdam We have been travelling to visit the IBC TV convention in Amsterdam for decades and other than the Superheroes campaign (2017-2019) when we travelled by bicycle, we have always travelled by aeroplane. VMI’s net-zero sustainability policy required us to replace air travel with more sustainable methods of transport, so for the first time, VMI will be travelling to IBC in 2022 with Eurostar! Read more
VMI Lighting Workshop Demonstrates Value of In-Person Events Seeing is believing, as they say, and now that we’re all back to business the chance, VMI’s new in-person workshops which allow visitors to get hands on with equipment and … Read more
VMI 2021 Carbon Audit Shows 9% CO2 Reduction Our second annual carbon audit of 2021 is complete and demonstrates that VMI has reduced its total carbon emissions, according to the Science-Based Target Initiative from 234TCO2e to 213TCO2e, a reduction of 8.9% compared to the 2019 baseline, on target with our net-zero by 2030 strategy. We only started our formal net-zero journey mid 2021, so this is a terrific result since many of our initiatives had yet to be completed. The breakdown of each Scope emissions are as follows Scope 1 emissions had reduced from 54TCO2e to 37.6TCO2e Scope 2 emissions also reduced from 13TCO2e to nil, as all electricity for 2021 was using exclusively green tariffs. Scope 3 (excluding CapEx purchases), increased from 167TCO2e to 175TCO2e Some of the increase in scope 3 emissions can be attributed to a greater detail of measurement, such as a detailed analysis of employees commuting, which was not undertaken in 2019. Our commitment is to publish our results every year, so view the full report and our roadmap as to how we plan to achieve net-zero by 2030 on the link here. Read more
Bristol Building 10.6KW Solar PV Installation VMI’s Bristol building has been fitted with a 10.6KW Solar PV array, to provide the majority of it’s power requirements. As part of this initiative, we have also replaced all lighting in Bristol facility with known Lumens/Watts-rated LED lights, to match Acton. This has reduced light-caused energy consumption by up to 90%. Even with EVs, 10.6KW is a lot more power than the Bristol branch is likely to use except at peak times and since our surplus is now being sold to the grid, we will in some small way help fortify Britain’s green power generation. Click here to see before and after pictures! Read more
Bristol Solar PV cuts power use by 56% Amazingly, Bristol’s Sola PV installation has cut their power use by more than half (56%), though the pictures tell the full story though! (Data from Octopus energy readings taken 25-April – 22 May but excluding 13 May when the installation was in progress). Previous daily average (18.92KWh. After installation, daily average reduced to 8.31KWh. Reduction of 10.61KWh per day of electricity use from grid or 56.1%) Read more
VMI London has 10KW of Solar Panels Installed In May 2022, in spite of having a 100% green electricity tariff since 2018, VMI installed 10KW of solar panels to its London HQ to generate most of its own power. With rising energy prices and fleet of electric vans coming, this looks like a good move to make. Read more
Environmental Grant won from West of England Combined Authority and European Regional Development Fund 50% Funding for environmental improvements to Bristol was sought and approved from the West of England Combined Authority and European Regional Development Fund. They helped to fund improvements to Bristol’s building for: • replacing existing fluorescent lighting with LED equivalents; • applying insulation above false ceiling. • replacing single-glazed rooflights with triple-glazed equivalents; • and a solar photovoltaic (PV) array. Website Link Read more
VMI is voted one of the UK’s Best Workplaces Having achieved a Great Place To Work certification for VMI, we were invited to enter the UK’s Greatest Workplace Awards and were delighted to be officially ranked 62 as one of the UK’s Best Workplaces. Read more
VMI donates full ARRI camera kit to West London College West London College is proud to announce a significant partnership with camera rental company, VMI, who supply camera packages to the TV Industry for dramas, feature films, documentaries, music videos and more. The partnership will ensure students on media courses at Ealing Green College will have access to cutting-edge equipment, with VMI donating a full ARRI digital camera kit, worth £100,000, to the college. The camera kit is still used in industry production and this particular camera was most recently used for shooting season 22 of ITV’s “Midsomer Murders” in summer 2021, which is due to continue airing throughout 2022. Read more
VMI E-BIKE SCHEME OPEN DAY HELD VMI held a BLIKE open day in April for our staff to try out the full range of E-Bikes available to lease from BLIKE. The scheme has been set up as an alternative to the existing Cycle-to-Work scheme, to personally lease E-Bikes as a healthier and cost-effective way of commuting and which is also very tax-efficient. I can personally attest to these bikes also being a LOT of fun! Read more
Bristol Building Roof Insulation and Triple-Glazed Roof Lights Fitted We replaced the single-glazed roof lights with triple glazed (U-value 1.6) and sprayed foam insulation to the underside of the steel roof of our Bristol building to improve its thermal efficiency.. These two initiatives are predicted to save 6.6T CO2 per year. Read more
VMI Awarded Ealing Business Pioneers To Promote Sustainable Lighting Use In Film and TV VMI has been awarded an Ealing Business Pioneers grant to help fund running in-person courses to spread awareness of the benefits and advantages of the latest LED lighting technology. The grant will be used to promote high efficiency lighting technologies which can help to reduce power and energy toward climate sustainability goals. Read more
We publish updated VMI Environmental and Sustainability Policy We updated our Environmental and Sustainability Policy and uploaded it here. We strongly believe in the power of community and continues to share ideas and solutions that inspire wider industry action and in June 2021, we committed to becoming a net zero organisation by 2030 and to halve its carbon emissions by 2025 using 2019 as the baseline year. These aren’t just words, so we have backed them up with a commitment to promote a plant-based diet and giving staff an additional annual day’s leave, if they haven’t used an aeroplane in the previous year for personal use. Download VMI Environmental and Sustainability Policy Document Read more
VMI Sponsors KIFF Film Festival VMI loves to support new entrants to the industry and is proud to be a partner of a brand new film festival in June, which aims to celebrate a diverse … Read more
VMI stops stocking Polyboards and pioneers sustainable replacement Polyboards are horribly unsustainable and their size makes them difficult to dispose of, so we have found a practical sustainable alternative and have stopped supplying the originals. The new Lastolite Rapids are even more versatile than the original, as we supply them with a variety of covers including black, white, silver and diffusion and can be easily assembled in 60 seconds. They can be reused over and over and even fit into a car – try that with an 8×8 poly! Read more
Camera Technicians Apprentice Scheme Builds on Successful First Year The new Apprenticeship Standard for Camera Prep Technicians is looking to expand after a successful first season launch. Last summer, nine trainees became the first cohort of apprentices to participate … Read more
Company Food Poll What kind of company polls their staff to see what food they would like to eat for catered events? We do! In February 2022, we polled the entire VMI staff and overwhelmingly, people asked us to provide them with predominantly vegetarian food. Interestingly, only one person voted for a 100% meat diet, though they admitted that this had been a mistake (they were vegetarian!) We have now adopted the results of the poll so all food supplied by VMI from now on will be in the proportions of 70% vegetarian, 30% meat, in line with staff wishes. Read more
VMI GROUP RECYCLES 100% OF WASTE – 2021 CERTIFIED Since 2019, as part of our annual carbon audit, we audit our waste every year to confirm that our waste reduction plan is working. For the entire 2021, just as in 2019, we were able to divert everything we didn’t need any more to be fully recycled or composted, making us 100% landfill-free!! Read more
Launch of VMI Microsite to show 20-year Sustainability Journey Not many people know that we have been working for almost 20 years to make VMI into a more sustainable and socially equitable company. We are totally committed to becoming a Net-Zero company by 2030 have launched a microsite to share our journey. Read more
VMI Donates Lights for Student Training VMI has partnered with Bristol-based college, boomsatsuma, donating a range of lighting equipment for BA Hons Filmmaking Production and Post-production degree student skills development, Jan 2021. Degree students based at … Read more
VMI is a certified Great Place to Work! VMI has always striven to be a place that people enjoy working in and a recent independent audit by organisation, GreatPlaceToWork, has confirmed that 96% of VMI’s workforce judge VMI … Read more
VMI E-Bike Scheme Launched VMI launched the BLIKE scheme as an alternative to the existing Cycle-to-Work scheme, to personally lease E-Bikes as a healthier and cost-effective way of commuting. Read more
Latest BECTU Guidance Adopted Jason Henwood, working with the Bectu Camera Branch, has published the latest guidance document detailing policies and and recommendations to help camera assistants, producers and rental companies to adopt more sustainable working … Read more
Data Centre Power Audit We’re auditing all of our data centres to make sure that our hosts all use 100% renewable electricity. Read more
Cut Packaging 10% We plan to cut a further 10% of our packaging and the packaging we receive. Even if packaging can be recycled, it’s better if it can be eliminated in the first place. Read more
We will be a Carbon Neutral Company by end 2022 We will be a Carbon Neutral company, by measuring and offsetting all CO2e emissions that we create operationally. This will be accredited by Roxy Ericksson of One-Thing to be recognised by Albert. Carbon neutrality isn’t the same as net-zero but helps us on our way to achieving full net-zero by 2030. Read more
Our 2021 Carbon Emissions to be fully offset Whilst offsetting isn’t quite the same as not emitting CO2 in the first place, it is nevertheless a start! By measuring all our employee commutes we will be able to analyse the difference in emissions impact between homeworking and office working and adjust our policies where we can. We will be offsetting all the commutes measured and indeed all of the CO2 which our audit calculates that we were responsible for. Read more
Bristol Building Insulation Programme The Bristol facility is being fully insulated and fitted with triple-glazed roof lights. We don’t know exactly how much CO2e this will save yet, but if it saves 33% of natural gas emissions, it could save nearly 2 tonnes of CO2e. In building projects like this, VMI require that builders only use timber from sustainable (managed) forests and when tendering for the work contractors must show their sustainability protocols. Read more
This year, 55% of Our Vehicle Fleet Will Be Electric We plan that by end end of 2022 55% of our vehicle fleet will be electric. This could save over 9,000 KG of CO2e. Read more
2021 VMI Annual Client Survey – Best Ever Results The latest annual VMI client survey had the best results of all time achieving a client satisfaction score of 4.8 out of 5, or 96% client approval rating, which I am utterly … Read more
VMI wins National Climate Award Hero of Net Zero at COP 26 VMI won a national award being crowned “Hero of Net Zero” by the UK Government at the international COP26 climate summit in November 2021 for its work on sustainability. More than 160 businesses entered the competition, making a commitment at the UK Business Climate Hub to achieve net zero by 2030, 20 years ahead of the Government’s own climate commitment. VMI.TV won over the competition judges for taking responsibility for their sectors environmental impact, spreading the sustainability message as founding members of the Bectu’s-Film-For-Future group. VMI.TV, Bristol and London-based camera rental company, crowned Hero of Net Zero at COP26 awards ceremony. Small business celebrated for original and creative actions taken to cut their own greenhouse gas emissions. The company urges other businesses to commit to net zero at UK Climate Hub. Read more
Formal commitment to Net Zero on Government Business Climate Hub The Government Business Climate Hub keeps a register of all UK companies who have committed to a net Zero Pledge and August 2021 saw VMI also adding its name, committing it to. Halving our greenhouse gas emissions before 2030 Achieving net zero emissions before 2050 Disclosing our progress on a yearly basis In doing so, we are proud to be recognised by the United Nations Race to Zero campaign, and join governments, businesses, cities, regions, and universities around the world that share the same mission. Read more
VMI Christmas Jumper Day to help Save the Children VMI took part in Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day on Friday 10 December 2021, for us all to wear our silliest, most festive jumper on & donated £124 to Save the Children. Read more
RA Futures Programme VMI supported the RA Agency Futures Program, identifying and developing black female talent in the scripted camera department, by offering space and equipment. To find out more about RA Agency and the Futures Program: www.ra-agency.online. Picture Credit: Teresa Adamson (2nd AC) training Samara Addai (Camera Trainee) to assist stepping up to 2nd AC. Read more
VMI 2021 Client Survey – 96% Service In December 2021, we held our 14th annual client satisfaction survey, asking all VMI clients who had hired from us in the previous 12 months exactly what they thought about us and we have included them for you here. Most importantly though, 40 of you voted VMI 4.8 on customer service (3 is average, 4 is good and 5 is excellent), which is equivalent to 96% client approval rating. Read more
Electric Vehicle Charging We installed EV charging bays, for which 1 x high speed charger was installed, for electric vans and staff cars in our Acton Branch. Charge points were also installed in anticipation of an electric van in 2022 in Bristol also. Read more
VMI Shortlisted for Park Royal Business of the Year award 2022 For the third year in as many years, VMI has been nominated as a finalist for the West London Business Awards. VMI has been shortlisted as one of three companies for the Green ‘Race to Zero’ Business of the Year but what is really surprising is that also, for the first time, we have been also shortlisted as one of three companies in the category of Park Royal Business of the Year. Read more
Lighting & Camera Sustainability Group We all agree in the importance of working together and sharing best practice, so Barry Bassett, VMI’s Managing Director set up a new sustainability group in late 2021, to build on the excellent work of Jason Henwood pre-COVID and to involve all UK rental companies who are interested in sustainability. The goal is simply to share everything that we have learned that is both good and also doesn’t really work and to collaborate openly in order to build a more sustainable industry. The first meeting was held on Wednesday 17 November 2021 and we plan to meet quarterly from hereon. Read more
VMI Retires all Tungsten Rental Lighting Tungsten is the most traditional form of TV/Film lighting still in use today, having replaced expensive and dangerous Carbon Arc fittings. In reality though, tungsten lighting fixtures ought to be called lighting heaters, since 96% of the energy used is output as heat, leaving only 4% to produce light. This makes them immensely inefficient and not at all compatible with modern sustainability ideals and on these grounds, VMI has decided to retire all of its tungsten lighting in October 2021*. Read more
VMI switches to ‘Green’ Gaffer/Camera Tape We are starting to look at all aspects of our business processes and supplier LeMark suggested that their new gaffer tape was more environmentally friendly than the regular type. They … Read more
Climate Crisis Employee Education Engaging with all stakeholders on our climate crisis journey is integral to realising the change needed. One step in this is educating our team on the basics of Climate Change so that they feel informed enough to speak about it and understand the urgency and what we can do about it. Read more
Company Policy: Vegetarian Meals Encouraged Our company policy now requires meals and drinks paid for by the company to be mostly vegetarian saving approx. 480 kgs of CO2e (based on current employee count and purchasing levels). Read more
Print and Toner Recycling All old ink and toner cartridges are disposed of in a responsible and sustainable manner with a new recycling bin installed by Lewis. We all know that these are very easy to buy and even easier to put into the dustbin when empty but he has found a waste company called Zero Waste Recycling, who will for a small fee, take all of our old cartridges and recycle them responsibly. We are all interested in the pursuit of saving more waste from going to landfill, so well done, Lewis! Read more
Ethical Banking We have reviewed our banking facilities and are pleased to be with the Cooperative Bank, who have the best ESG profile of all UK banks*. We continue to review all financial investments, including pensions, and if necessary, are moving from institutions investing in arms, coal, oil and natural gas. *Rated by Sustainalytics in the Regional Banks subindustry with a score of 9.2 as of 11 June 2021. Read more
Created Net Zero Roadmap We’ve created our Net Zero Roadmap! We will reduce our emissions to the limits that technology and society set for us by 2030 and offset any residual emissions along the way. Read more
VMI : Climate Leader Award VMI is voted a Climate Leader by Ealing council in 2021 for its sustainability drive. Read more
VMI Stops Using Disposable AA Batteries VMI has made the transition to using rechargeable AA batteries and entirely stopped the environmentally harmful use of disposable batteries and shared this practice with the wider rental community. Read more
VMI takes on three new Apprentices Our apprenticeship programme has launched! Jonah Mann, Josh Barker, and Matt Fisher are our first recruits. This makes all the nagging, lobbying, meetings and consultations worth it. 200 people applied and of those we invited 42 to an activity event hosted at the London Screen Academy. 13 trainees will become the first cohort of Camera Technician Apprentices, They started a 2 week “boot camp” at the LSA on 24 August to begin a 2-year training programme designed by UK rental companies, which will train them to near Senior Technician standard without any cost to them and whilst being fully employed. Upon completion, they will achieve a formal industry qualification of a level 3 NVQ by August 2023. Read more
Sustainable Travel Policy Implemented We created a company travel policy, committing to not using airplanes for all European travel. Our policy promotes video conferencing, bike and rail travel, suggests road travel as Plan B and, only when flying is necessary, asks staff members to discriminate, where possible, between airlines/planes based on fuel and fleet efficiency. Read more
VMI Group Recycles 100% of Waste – CERTIFIED You heard that right! Our waste reduction plan is working!! For the last year we were able to divert everything we didn’t need any more to be fully recycled or composted, making us 100% landfill-free!! In 2019 we created over 24,000Kg of CO2e, we haven’t performed our 2021 carbon audit yet but we look forward to seeing a huge cut in this number. Read more
Long-awaited UK Camera Tech Apprenticeship standard is rolled out More than 200 young hopefuls who initially lodged their interest in the new Camera Tech Apprenticeship programme, were reduced to 100 after the first sift, 56 at the second and just 42 received invitations to the activity and selection day event, hosted at the London Screen Academy on Wednesday 21 July. Read more
Lower Carbon Cleaning Products We use Splosh, who provide washing up liquid, cleaning products and hand-wash, in order to entirely eliminate unnecessary plastic waste, since their products are refilled using pouches, which are then sent back for refilling or to be turned into new products. Splosh is formulated using kind chemicals which are also good for the environment. Less and smaller deliveries mean lower carbon emissions. Read more
First Carbon Audit Complete VMI completed its first ever Carbon Audit. Since 2020 was such a peculiar year, we used 2019 as our base year from which all of our carbon saving measures will be compared with. Going forwards, we commit to completing a carbon audit every year and publicly publishing our results. This way, we can demonstrate that we are taking real action to reduce our emissions annually and hopefully be on track with our net zero commitment. Read more
UK’s first Apprenticeship Standard for Camera Technicians now open for registration Back in 2019, VMI Managing Director, Barry Bassett, first contacted the TV Industry body, ScreenSkills in order to investigate whether it might be possible to set up a formal apprenticeship standard for UK Camera Rental companies. After some false starts, the first cohort of Apprentices will start this year. Read more
5 years of renewable electricity We have been powered solely by 100% renewable electricity since 2016 at all our sites. We are proud that in 2022, all of VMI’s gas and electric supplies of all buildings are supplied by Octopus Energy Read more
VMI’s Barry Bassett wins prestigious Nelsonian Award. A surprise announcement by Infinity Photo-Optical Company, saw VMI’s Managing Director, Barry Bassett being awarded their annual Nelsoniantm Award to recognise his work and lifetime commitment to imaging excellence and specifically in publishing his paper on macro and micro cinematography. Read more
Living Wage Week coincides with VMI’s anniversary achieving accreditation One year ago, VMI achieved formal accreditation of being a Living Wage Employer. The Living Wage foundation are the organisation at the heart of the independent movement of businesses and … Read more
VMI help to set up UK’s first Apprenticeship Standard for Camera Technicians We want an industry that is accessible to all. For the past 18 months we’ve been working on an apprentice programme specifically for 16-19 year olds (but open to anyone 16 on up). We got in touch with the TV Industry Body, ScreenSkills and we persuaded the Institute of Apprenticeships to approve the design of a new standard. Now our apprentices will gain an NVQ by working with us. We collaborated with many industry companies to create the standard including S+O Media, Panavision, Movietech, ARRI Rental, Shoot Blue, CVP, Focus 24, Shift-4, Brownian Motion, Take-2 and CVP. While we’re proud of initiating this idea, collaborating with the rest of the industry is important if we are to create an industry that is socially just and allows our apprentices to prosper and grow. [Designing an apprenticeship standard pre-zoom took a lot of meetings and a lot of coffee!] Read more
Employee Assistance Programme Set Up All of our staff and their families can access confidential one-on-one advice on any subject, from mortgages to mental health, for which they need support. Read more
Albert Sustainable Supplier We’ve been recognised by Bafta’s albert initiative as a supplier going the extra mile to be green and support the production industry. By signing this declaration, we endeavour to work alongside Albert to direct our industry into more sustainable practices, including taking trains instead of planes, using sustainable paper, reducing wasteful packaging, minimising the use of single use plastics etc. Albert Certification Read more
2019 VMI Annual Client Survey – Best Ever Results The latest annual VMI client survey had the best results of all time achieving a client satisfaction score of 4.7 out of 5 for the 5th year in a row, which I am utterly thrilled about. (3 is average, 4 is good and 5 is excellent). Read more
VMI is a finalist in two categories of West London Business Awards VMI is a finalist in two categories of the 7th annual West London Business Awards, for “Creative/Media Business of the Year” and also the “Responsible Workplace award”. The awards celebrate business excellence, … Read more
VMI’s Green Credentials in the news The Guild of Television Camera Professionals has written an article on our green credentials. Alison Chapman of the GTC said VMI was “the best example we have found of a company within the industry really committing to this in a thorough and thoughtful way is GTC sponsor VMI, which has already introduced many sustainable and environmentally friendly practices.” Read more
VMI Sponsors First Prize of Cine Circle Film Festival VMI sponsored the 2019 Cine Circle Film Festival, a relatively new film festival designed to encourage recognition for new film makers. Founder, Zbigniew Siwek, describes Cine Circles aims are “to connect, … Read more
We did it! Superheroes raised over £60K in past 3 years to make world landmine-free 2019 was the final year of the Superheroes ride which actually also attracted the most sponsors for our Superheroes ride so far with 85 sponsors! We were able to raise over £25,000 for MAG, who save people from landmines. [8 intrepid Superheroes, en-route to Amsterdam on the final ride of the 3-year Superheroes campaign. From the left, pictured are: Steve Baxter, Darren Cock, Adam Rodgers, Yevgeny Subbotin, Barry Bassett, Ali Wilson, Daniel Layne, Peter Withers] Read Full Story about why we did did this, how the campaign was started and see pictures of the rides and videos, including letters of support from Prince Harry and the King of Holland! Read more
VMI receives accreditation of Living Wage Employer Status We have received accreditation as a Living Wage Provider. VMI has received formal recognition of its status as a fully accredited Living Wage Employer. This is the only UK wage rate based on the actual cost of living in London. Read more
VMI Bans Single-use Plastic VMI has taken great strides to reduce its impact on the environment and continues to do so, going forward, wherever and whenever possible with a new initiative to ban single-use … Read more
VMI was a finalist for the 6th annual West London Business Awards VMI was a finalist for the 6th annual West London Business Awards, for the category of Creative/Media Business of the Year at the 2019 West London Business Awards. The award celebrated business excellence, and showcases … Read more
Benchmark Year for Carbon Reduction This is our benchmark year for carbon reduction. We audited our emissions and discovered we created 123,725KG of CO2e emissions in 2019. We measured Scopes 1 and 2 along with water and waste. We will use this number as our starting line to measure further into Scope 3 and with the goal of Net Zero by 2030. Read more
VMI 2018 Customer Survey Results are in In December 2018, we held our 10th annual client satisfaction survey, asking all VMI clients who had hired from us in the previous 12 months exactly what they thought about … Read more
VMI is voted finalist for West London Business Awards 2019 VMI has was a finalist for the 6th annual West London Business Awards, for the category of Creative/Media Business of the Year at the 2019 West London Business Awards. The award celebrated business excellence, … Read more
Monthly Wellness Day We offer a monthly ‘wellness day’ to staff, working with Lulabelle Wellness, giving staff an individual 15 minute gentle massage with a trained masseuse. This has been incredibly popular and the last Tuesday of the month is eagerly awaited by everyone! Read more
Cloud-based Company We archive all documents electronically, to save printing and storage and set up a cloud-based HR system, where staff can access all company procedures and staff manuals. This ensures all employees have equal access to the information and means that we aren’t printing packs of documents for each new member of staff. Our servers are on site so they are powered via 100% renewable electricity. Read more
Film for Future, BECTU We are proud to be founding members and continuing contributors of Bectu’s Film for Future. To promote best sustainable practices within the department, the Camera Branch’s Sustainability working group, has designed a handy guide to be shared amongst crew. You can read the latest guidance document here detailing policies and and recommendations to help camera assistants, producers and rental companies to adopt more sustainable working practices. Read more
Biodegradable Plastic Packaging We switched to EPI biodegradable plastic to seal filters. We tested this plastic ourselves to see how it degrades and found that it didn’t perform as well as we had hoped and plan to change to potato starch based tubing later in 2022. You might be interested to note that this change was inspired by client feedback in our annual customer questionnaire survey. Read more
Paper Labels to Seal Cables We switched to paper adhesive labels to seal cables. These give us and clients a visible indication of whether cables require testing or not. The labels are recycled paper for minimum environmental impact. Cables were sealed in single-use (once-opened) plastic sheathing until now. Full supplier details of our paper labels, including size & supplier and also tubing supplier is here. Read more
Our Superheroes Ride raises £20K in Year Two Year two of our superheroes fundraising bike ride from London to Bristol and we doubled our fundraising to £20,000! The money raised all goes to MAG International to make the world landmine free by 2025. They cleared 100,000 pieces of ordinance during 2019 and as a result, the toll on innocent human beings being blown up reduced from 24 to 20, though it still meant that around 10 children were blown up daily. We were going to show an image of the 4 riders arriving in Amsterdam (Steve Baxter, Barry Bassett, Ali Wildon, Darren Cock), but instead preferred to show this image instead, explains perfectly why we felt compelled to do this. Read more
Our First Electric Vehicle VMI’s media rental arm, VMEDIA, offers the first solely electric delivery service from a camera/media company. This means 100% of our VMedia deliveries will be electric! As a low-carbon service, the vehicle incurs no congestion charge and this saving is passed on to customers. Read more
Free Fruit We buy unlimited free fruit for staff to munch on. This really simple and popular decision has continued and encourages great eating and is much more health that the free biscuits that we used to buy everyone! Read more
Recycled Paper Only We only use recycled paper and we recycle all paper and cardboard waste that it produces. Faxes and emails are received and filed electronically, avoiding all printing of them. Read more
Superheroes Bike Ride raises £10K for Landmine Charity Superhero bicycle rides begin! In our first year, riding from London to Amsterdam, we beat our fundraising target of £10,000. It’s our goal that the world is free of landmines by 2025. All funds raised by our rides go towards MAG (Mines Advisory Group), a charity based in Manchester, UK. MAG go into places inflicted with conflict and find and destroy landmines, cluster munitions and unexploded bombs. Please read about them and support them directly or through our Superhero rides. [Year 1 of the Superheroes ride arriving in Amsterdam. From left, Jay Odedra and Barry Bassett] Read more
Major Project saves 30,000KWH per year We consolidated seven separate servers into one more efficient server, saving the power to both run the servers and cool them. The project was innovative enough for Ealing Council to give us their Environmental Award!! We save approximately 30,000KWH electricity annually. Read more
Energy Usage Reduced Over a 4-year period, VMI cut its energy use in Acton by 8% annually through smart energy-reducing measures. Having smart meters really helped us to monitor the effects of these quickly Read more
Conscious cooling We have fan-assisted heat extraction which requires no refrigeration gases to cool our building. Overnight, the fans expel hot air collected in the ceiling space. However, as we are seeing hotter and hotter days in the UK, we are looking for more extensive cooling that is still environmentally-friendly. In the meantime, we’ve created workstations within smaller rooms in our warehouse so that staff can keep cool without refrigerating the whole warehouse inefficiently. Read more
Satisfied Customers We monitor the score that you give us for customer service every year and hope to always improve on this. We still read every comment that clients make on our annual client satisfaction survey and act accordingly whenever we feel that we could do better. We publish our findings each year and since 2015 have never received lower than a 94% satisfaction rating from you for customer service! Read more
Water Meters Installed We’ve installed water meters to monitor our usage with a goal of lowering our water and energy usage. Read more
Home Working Introduced Created a home-working provision to reduce commuting emissions and improve our staff’s work/life balance. This is available to all employees whose jobs aren’t dependent on being in the warehouse. [VMI Senior Client Contact, Ali Wilson, working from home with his baby son Ethan Wilson. I am not sure how much work was achieved that day!] Read more
Water Coolers Eradicated We eradicated bottled water deliveries, installing a mains-fed water cooler instead at our Acton base. This supplies ground-cooled filtered tap water fountain cutting transport emissions, plastic-creation and electricity consumption. Read more
Eco flooring The floors of the warehouse are installed with Ecotiles, insulating the space. Made from recycled Tetrapaks, Ecotiles are 100% recyclable after their lifespan of 20 years, contain no toxic materials, do not require adhesives and are manufactured in Luton. Read more
LED Lighting Installed We installed LED lights through our London facility. These offer a better quality of light, are less tiring to staff, as well as reducing electricity by approximately 90% and reduce our need for cooling. (Fun note: These were not readily available in 2012, so we imported the lighting fixtures directly ourselves from China.) Read more
Towel Waste Eradicated We eradicated towel waste, having installed Dyson Blade hand driers in toilets in both VMI buildings. Hand dryers reduce our carbon emissions compared to paper towels by up to 70%. COVID briefly caused a reintroduction of paper towel usage this has now been halted. Read more
Eradicated Using Canned Air We installed a compressor to distribute pumped, filtered air around the building. Before this, we were buying around 200 cans of pressurised air annually. We stopped this and installed compressors to deliver pressurised air to the work benches which saves waste and delivery emissions. Read more
Paid Internships Introduced We introduce a paid three-month internship programme which provided significant camera training and a route into the TV industry for those with little or some experience. Over half of our camera-floor employees started out as interns. For reference, Jack Cherrington (right in image), started out as an intern back in 2015 and progressed all the way to senior technician, where he remained in post until 2021. [VMI’s Internship intake 2015. From the left: Faith Glennister, Moses Fapohunda and Jack Cherrington] Read more
Introduce Cycle to Work Scheme The Cycle to Work scheme allows staff to buy decent bikes without the large upfront pay out. We’re proud to be a part of it. Three of our London team … Read more
Introduce No-cost Flexible Deliveries We introduce free-of charge non time-specific deliveries in order to create more multiple drop trips significantly reducing in our transport-created emissions. Read more
Commenced Client Surveys Client Satisfaction Surveys – Your opinion is so important to us we introduced sending clients annual client satisfaction surveys, publishing these on our website. We read all feedback (good and bad) and always act on this. Eradicating single use plastic polybags from filters was one of these suggestions! Read more
Web Guides Enhanced Film technology changes fast. We offer free, continued professional development videos and guides to the industry. There’s a wealth of knowledge on our Learn & Help page and we’ve made videos on many subjects too. Our expert staff also make videos showing you samples of just what you can expect from a range of equipment. Learn & Help articles span a large number of subjects including lighting, data workflows, lenses, camera and cinematography. Read more
Began Producing Web Guides We began producing web guides covering the transition to HD and then extended this to lighting, cinematography and other subjects in order to spread good practice and technological developments within the industry. Unusually for the time, these were freely available on our website for anyone to access. Read more
Noise Disturbance Minimised We have always worked towards minimising noise disturbance caused by our business to neighbours. As we transition to electric vehicles this will improve even further.
Set up Screening Theatre for Presentations Amazingly, we even set up our own 19 seat screening theatre at our 19 D’Arblay Street Soho office, so that we could present our ‘HD for Producers’ seminar every week. Over 1000 people attended this course over the next few years. Read more
Began Running Workshops We began running workshops to promote solid state production workflows to the industry. [Solid-state workflow course given in Soho, circa 2004]
Began using Tapeless Technology We began promoting the environmental merits of tape-less technology reducing stock waste to begin early migration from tape-based production. This included producing internet guides and also running workshops to help promote new production methods. Read more
VMI wins Gold Award for 2023 Carbon Reduction from Ecologi Ecologi announced on Earth Day (22 April), that their judging panel had awarded VMI with a Gold Award for its carbon reduction successes. Ecologi is a passionate climate platform, who … Read more
VMI Cuts Carbon Emissions for Third Year by 36% on 2022 VMI recently celebrated a significant achievement in its sustainability journey, as revealed in its latest carbon audit by Creative Zero. After three years of dedicated efforts to reduce its carbon footprint, VMI surpassed expectations with a remarkable 36% reduction in its operational carbon footprint in 2023 compared to 2022. VMI’s carbon emissions have actually decreased by more than half from its new 2021 base year of 213T to 78T in 2023. These numbers, meticulously calculated in accordance with SBTi guidelines, reflect VMI’s dedication to surpassing industry standards and driving meaningful change in sustainability practices. Download full report Read more
Full Transition to EVs We plan on transitioning all of our vehicles be electric to the end of 2024. This will save approximately 37,000 KGs of CO2e (when compared to our 2019 transport emissions) Read more
Cut Emissions by 50% We will have cut our emissions by half by 2025 compared to 2019. Our plan is to create less than 62,500KG this year (and/or less than 2KG/employee). We will have cut all our dependency on natural gas by 2025 which will eliminate another 13,000KG of CO2e emissions. Read more
Address Scope 3 Emissions As with many companies auditing their emissions, we know that Scope 3 can be tricky. But by 2026 it is our goal to have all upstream & downstream Scope 3 carbon emissions fully audited with changes made in suppliers to reduce emissions where ever possible. We plan to have all Scope 3 emissions been verified and neutralised by us or by the stakeholder responsible for them. Read more
True Net Zero Achieved We aim to reach Net Zero emissions in Scopes 1, 2 & 3 by 2030. This means that we will have reduced our emissions as far as technology allows and we will have offset any residual emissions that we can’t eliminate (yet!). Read more
Celebrate the World achieving Net Zero! Celebrate the world achieving Net Zero and not surpassing 1.5°C global temperature rise and 20 years of Net Zero as a company thriving within the green economy. …well, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of optimism! Read more