Environmental Sustainability
Online Events

11

March 2026

BFI FAN Green Hour: How Cinemas Can Become Community Energy Heroes

1-4pm

Online

 

BFI FAN: Green Hour is a series of events for UK film exhibitors focusing on environmental sustainability.

 

The future of energy is community-run!

 

Picture this: solar panels on your roof, wind turbines nearby, all owned by your community. Local investors fund the project, you buy clean energy at discount rates, and surplus profits flow back into community projects. Its renewable energy meets sustainable local economics – and cinemas can lead the charge.

With cinemas balancing the demands of running venues with rising energy costs, community energy presents an exciting opportunity. This BFI FAN Green Hour will be a community energy explainer, exploring how cinemas can partner with community-owned renewable energy projects to reduce costs, lower carbon emissions, and build a local, sustainable future.

 

If you have any access requirements or general queries about the event, or are interested in taking part in a future edition, please get in touch at: [email protected].

This is a nationwide event, open to all members of the BFI Film Audience Network’s regional and national Film Hubs. BFI FAN: Green Hour is delivered by Film Hub North on behalf of the BFI Film Audience Network.

 

Speakers

John Taylor

Head of Capacity Building at Community Energy England, who works on partnerships between community energy and creative industries, helping to maximise scale and impact with new audiences. He has worked in local government advisory roles for the past 16 years, focusing on climate change action and community energy.

Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn

Founders of Optimistic Foundation and makers of POWER STATION, a film chronicling their project to power their street with solar energy one home at a time, inspired by mutual aid networks that flourished during lockdown. Can we make every cinema a community power station as well?

Image © Community Energy England

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