The Green Square Mile

Ken Livingstone has officially launched a program to help London become the greenest place to film in the world. Not *that* kind of green - we're not going to see Regents Park stand in for the Amazon Basin anytime soon. We're talking the other green. The one we got all excited about yesterday. Y'know, the environmental one.

'Green Screen London' is a series of initiatives aiming to make our film and television industry the cleanest and most energy efficient in the world. The plan is to establish the existing carbon footprint, then organise a conference later in the year to look at ways of reducing it. Meanwhile, the industry's current Code Of Practice for location filming in London will get a green-fingered overhaul, and the whole scheme will be overseen by an advisory group.

So who's on board? Anybody who's anybody. It's like they called up every number in Bill Nighy's Filofax. Anthony Minghella, the UK Film Council, BAFTA, Ealing Studios, the Production Manager's Association.. the list goes on.

Host to a £13 billion industry, our city is the world's third busiest production centre after Los Angeles and New York (one of the few areas the Big Apple still lords it over us, snarf snarf), so it's good to see we're leading the way forward. Now, if we could just convince certain filmmakers (we're looking at you, Messrs Allen and Curtis) that London is made up of more than just Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and St. Paul's, we'd be much happier, thankyouverymuch.

Lean mean green machine from Tub Gurnard's Flickrstream