In September last year dirtgirlworld was honoured with the inaugural GRASS Award presented by the Australian Director's Guild, to encourage green awareness. Arts Northern Rivers talks to Director Cate McQuillen about Mememe Productions' commitment to follow up their award winning kids eco-entertainment television series, with a merchandising plan focused on reducing their eco-footprint.

It took several years for the full dirtgirlworld concept to roll out, but throughout that time it was always about an eco message. What was your main inspiration for the show and how did you incorporate that into the program?

The inspiration for dirtgirlworld comes from our love of the world around us; and the simple lifestyle that my partner Hewey and me have created in the Northern Rivers. It is grounded in what we have learned over 20 years of trying to live sustainably. We want to encourage everyone to get outside more, to explore and experience the natural world, because if they love it, they will want to protect it. What better place to start than children and the adults who care for them?

Simply put, it is a message from our hearts. Our background is music and the show is full of great music and lots of fun; a positive message about the little things we can do every day, not a finger-wagging doomy-gloomy one!

We certainly want dirtgirlworld to make a big difference and the emails we get on a daily basis already show that it is, for many families in Australia and around the world!

dirtgirlworld was produced in a shed in Whiporie (in the Richmond Valley), with the cooperation of numerous national and international partners and collaborators. Working with this kind of model can be resource intensive. What did you do to minimise your impact on the environment during the production stage?

Well actually the show WAS conceived in Whiporie and there's no doubt our home is the global HQ for dirtgirlworld but we worked with partners, offices and studios in Sydney, Melbourne, Toronto, New York and London to produce the show! More than 170 people contributed to production.

Reducing our eco-footprint was probably easier because we think about that stuff all the time, but it takes persistence and effort even when you are committed; and we believe that you should take your values to work, don't leave them at home!

We did heaps of things to reduce our environmental impact during production, from getting the artists camping out at Whiporie to create the props from recycled materials and junk heaps, to renting a cast and crew shared house in Sydney during the shoot blocks furnished with second-hand furniture! We used organic laundry services and green-car hire services when travelling. We provided washable china mugs to discourage the use of disposable cups and filtered (rather than bottled) water on location. We gave our left-over catering to the homeless. We bought recycled stationery and bought green power and we reserved a percentage of the production budget for offsetting the carbon we just couldn't reduce.

We love technology that saves resources. We used Skype for meetings rather than travelling to them and a great new software package out of South Australia called cinesync, which enables edits and other movie files to be watched simultaneously by partners around the world, who can add their own notes from wherever they are and save out jpegs for record keeping.

Now that the show is such a huge success, broadcast in 106 countries around the world, it's no surprise that there has been a demand for dirtgirlworld merchandise. What decisions have you made around what you would and wouldn't do, to ensure your merchandising strategy is in keeping with the show's ethos?

We never created the show to produce landfill. We brought in a 'brand guardian' with experience in green retailing and communications early on. Our style guide is web-based and contains our philosophy and brand criteria, which are designed to ensure that all dirtgirlworld products are sustainable, eco-packed and that people aren't exploited in their manufacture. We also have organic criteria for garden and food products and criteria that encourage suppliers to use zero-waste production methods and renewable energy.

We have appointed a licensing agent who is committed to finding licensees who are willing and able to meet or exceed our criteria and we select our partners very carefully. Our home entertainment partner, Madman, has sourced 100% recycled DVD cases that are wrapped in compostable shrinkwrap we think it's the first sustainable kids DVD in Australia and meet all the industry standard requirements for security and distribution. And they are NOT too expensive to produce! We have created 100% organic cotton t-shirts, CDs packed in 100% recycled paper, backpacks made with Fairtrade Certified organic cotton from India and we have just launched a fantastic range of 100% recycled party invitations and birthday cards through Earth Greetings. Watch this space for new products ...

We are having conversations with potential partners all the time and it's great to be finding companies and individuals who want to make a positive difference and who know that the future of merchandise is green. But it is counter-culture to the TV licensing world that became the norm and which is spectacularly grinding to a halt at retail. Stores like Kmart are pulling out altogether it just isn't working. We are changing the norm. We have to, because parents want to buy gear for their kids that doesn't cost the earth or harm their kids. They want to know where the stuff they are buying comes from. We have to find new ways to do this business.

What advice do you have for other filmmakers about the types of changes that they can make to minimise their eco footprint?

Think about your impact at the beginning. Design your production and schedule to REDUCE your footprint. Don't just do what you've always done and buy more carbon credits later; you will still have created a bigger footprint than you needed to. Don't forget the three R's are first and foremost REDUCE, then REUSE and lastly, RECYCLE!

Write out your environmental mission statement and appoint a team member to monitor it throughout the process and be part of the decisions at all stages in production.

Do as much as you can electronically! See greening your production as one of your creative challenges! Make it fun, not a chore, and you will find it brings pleasure and joy to you and the whole team.

Be strong in your convictions and challenge those who tell you it's all too difficult. Internet searches are a great way to find out how others are going green, from finding green suppliers to getting great ideas for design and production. Everyone in this business is learning how to be greener and it's a steep learning curve, but there are examples from all kinds of industries that can transfer directly across.

Think about the LITTLE things you can do everyday. Add them all up and they DO make a BIG difference!

dirtgirlworld was created by local filmmakers, Cate McQuillen and Hewey Eustace.

The dirtgirlworld children's animation series (a coproduction of Cate and Hewey's mememe productions and Canada-based Decode Entertainment) went to air in 2010, in Australia, Canada, USA, Israel, France, French-speaking Europe and Africa, the United Arab Emirates and South Korea.

In its first 12 months, dirtgirlworld was awarded an Australia Day Award for contribution to the Arts, an Australian Directors Guild for best animation direction and the 2010 GRASS Awards for green production of the year and an AFI for best children's animation series.

In 2011 the series is set to launch via the international Cbeebies network in China, Poland, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Palau, Bhutan, Pakistan, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Macau, Maldives, Nepal, North Korea and Bangladesh.

For more information and to experience dirtgirlworld for yourself, go to www.dirtgirlworld.com, www.dirtgirlworld.tv, dirtgirlworldshop.com.au, and the new dirtgirlworld clubsite, clubdirtgirlworld.com - a new concept in social networking for pre-schoolers, where young fans can create avatars to share their wishes for the planet and participate in global campaign actions; and where their parents, teachers and carers can share what they know and learn what they don't on a 'scrapblog' forum site.