“There shouldn’t be any doubt about enrolling in this course; it’s a no-brainer.”
Alexandru Enache and Cerasela Marin, Managing Partners,
SEEDIGITAL
Diploma in Business Sustainability Graduates
About the company
SEEDIGITAL was founded in 2016 in Romania by Cerasela Marin and Alexandru Enache. Cerasela’s background was as a news television journalist and government communicator while Alexandru worked in film production.
The business started as a video creation and production company for SMEs and grew into a creative video marketing agency for larger companies and multinationals. Since 2021, Cerasela and Alexandru moved their operations to Belgium and are now transitioning into becoming sustainability consultants for the film and entertainment industry.
Why did you choose to do a business sustainability course?
We worked in cinematography together and noticed the industry is not regulated from a sustainability perspective. To put it plainly, there are no good practices and because of this, sustainability is very much a choice rather than something the industry has to adopt.
For example, studies show for a large feature film, one with a 70 million dollar budget, that 50 percent of its carbon emissions come from transportation. Most of cinematography runs on diesel and petrol so you can see how this is problematic when we are trying to achieve net zero emissions.
Other examples of where sustainability practices are relevant in this field include food management, waste management and lighting. In 2021, we were doing a large 5-day commercial shoot for an automotive company in Romania. We sat on the side of the road with a bin behind us and a generator nearby with fumes passing through.
This is when we realised that the way the industry is currently operating isn’t working and we need to find better ways. Sustainability can’t be an afterthought in this industry; it comes into the planning phase. We wanted to work towards doing this and so that is why we decided to do a business sustainability course.
Our ultimate goal was that we wanted to make the film industry more sustainable. However, we wanted to go about it the right way rather than just choosing easy quick fixes. We knew we needed to change our thinking to really tackle the bigger picture and so doing a course like this seemed to be ideal.
What made you select the course with the Institute of Sustainability Studies?
We both carried out research before choosing this course but what we found was that other courses were not so encompassing. In other words, they specialised in different areas when what we wanted was a real foundational understanding of business sustainability.
We were experienced in our own fields but didn’t have backgrounds in sustainability. The course we selected needed to have a business angle since film and entertainment is a business. We were thrilled to find something that had everything in one sitting and we could see the structure was very logical.
Tell us about your learning experience on the course.
We appreciated the online and flexible format and being able to have our own learning schedule to fit our studies around work and other life commitments.
The course gave us a very good structure and after each module, we could rewatch and read over the material and create a roadmap of solutions for our clients.
Doing the course at our own pace helped tremendously as we like to dedicate ourselves solely to one task at a time. We also wanted to make sure we always watched everything and got every bit of value out of the course.
What has been the impact on your business from doing the course?
Firstly, we’ve been able to create our own sustainability plan so that we become more environmentally friendly. For example, we’re not travelling as much for work. We don’t buy our equipment anymore, we actually rent the equipment instead. If we have to buy something, we will select secondhand items.
Secondly, we are now well-positioned to approach the European film and entertainment market with our consultancy service. The course gave us the knowledge and practical tools we needed to be able to create sustainability plans for our clients and help them implement them.
Can you confidently say that doing the course has advanced your team’s level of climate literacy?
Absolutely it has improved. We have a lot of insight now on our business activity and in our day-to-day lives too. We can now set sustainability goals and work towards reaching them so the course has given us a lot of perspective.
What would you say to someone who is on the fence about doing the course?
I don’t think there should be any doubt about enrolling in this course. If your business has a sustainability roadmap, this course is a no-brainer. If we hire anyone else, we will be putting them through the course and we’re constantly recommending the course to other people too.
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If you are interested in gaining a comprehensive and practical understanding of key sustainability concepts and learning to implement sustainability best practices to confidently lead sustainability initiatives within your organisation, or advance your career in sustainability, start your learning journey today with the Diploma in Business Sustainability.
