Fay­ola Fras­er

In a world where cli­mate change and sus­tain­abil­i­ty are of­ten buried in dense re­ports and in­ac­ces­si­ble sta­tis­tics, one T&T non-prof­it is break­ing through the noise with some­thing far more pow­er­ful: sto­ries.

Since its found­ing in 2011, Sus­tain T&T—led by Carv­er Bac­chus—has be­come a pi­o­neer in us­ing me­dia, es­pe­cial­ly film, to dri­ve ed­u­ca­tion, in­spire ac­tion, and ig­nite change. Through its flag­ship Green Screen En­vi­ron­men­tal Film Se­ries and on­go­ing doc­u­men­tary projects, the or­gan­i­sa­tion has reimag­ined how peo­ple here and abroad en­gage with en­vi­ron­men­tal and so­cial is­sues.

Launched the same year as Sus­tain T&T, the Green Screen Film Se­ries was the first of its kind in the coun­try. By tak­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal sto­ry­telling in­to schools, com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres, and cin­e­mas, the se­ries made com­plex sus­tain­abil­i­ty top­ics ac­ces­si­ble to all. The ap­proach, which Bac­chus calls “edu­tain­ment,” merges ed­u­ca­tion with en­ter­tain­ment, aim­ing to make big, of­ten daunt­ing ideas both com­pelling and re­lat­able.

In 2015, Sus­tain T&T ex­pand­ed in­to doc­u­men­tary film­mak­ing with A Bet­ter Place, a five-part se­ries cre­at­ed with the UNDP GEF Small Grants Pro­gramme. Each episode spot­light­ed a lo­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion work­ing on en­vi­ron­men­tal so­lu­tions, but one in par­tic­u­lar—Turn­ing a Page—earned in­ter­na­tion­al ac­claim, win­ning mul­ti­ple awards in­clud­ing at the SDGs in Ac­tion Film Fes­ti­val in New York. The film went on to be dis­trib­uted on plat­forms such as Caribbean Tales TV in Cana­da and Anan­si TV in the US.

Open­ing the lens to every­one

In­clu­siv­i­ty is cen­tral to Sus­tain T&T’s mis­sion—not just in the sto­ries it tells, but in who gets to tell them. Now in its eighth year, the Very Short Shorts com­pe­ti­tion in­vites any­one with a smart­phone or cam­era to cre­ate a one-minute film on en­vi­ron­men­tal or sus­tain­abil­i­ty themes. The com­pe­ti­tion re­moves bar­ri­ers like cost and ex­pe­ri­ence, pro­vid­ing cat­e­gories such as the Peo­ple’s Choice Award, the Youth Ju­ry Award, and for 2025, a new YouTube View­er­ship Award.

“It’s about lev­el­ling the play­ing field,” Bac­chus ex­plains. “We want to dri­ve par­tic­i­pa­tion, give lo­cal film­mak­ers of all lev­els a plat­form, and spark a cul­ture of cre­ative prob­lem-solv­ing.”

For Sus­tain T&T, film is more than an art form—it’s a cat­a­lyst for cul­tur­al change.

“Film is a very emo­tive medi­um,” says Bac­chus. “The most pow­er­ful sto­ries sur­vive for gen­er­a­tions. Some of the ones we’ve in­her­it­ed don’t serve us well, so we need to cre­ate new ones—sto­ries that em­bed sus­tain­abil­i­ty in­to the scrolls of our time.”

By re­shap­ing nar­ra­tives, the or­gan­i­sa­tion hopes to in­flu­ence how com­mu­ni­ties think about their re­la­tion­ship with the en­vi­ron­ment, forg­ing val­ues that pri­ori­tise the well­be­ing of fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

A sea­son in full colour

The 2025 sea­son promis­es to be Sus­tain T&T’s most vi­brant yet. With the theme Full Colour, the Very Short Shorts com­pe­ti­tion will en­cour­age film­mak­ers to ex­plore the in­ter­sec­tions of the 17 UN Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs). Par­tic­i­pants are in­vit­ed to cre­ate sto­ries that tack­le mul­ti­ple goals at once—link­ing cli­mate ac­tion to gen­der equal­i­ty, qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion, de­cent work, and more.

“The metaphor is sim­ple,” Bac­chus says. “If we build the SDGs in­to our every­day de­ci­sions—what we eat, how we trav­el, how we spend our free time—we can cre­ate an en­vi­ron­ment for sus­tain­able think­ing to thrive.”

This year will al­so see an ex­pand­ed pro­gramme, in­clud­ing a Com­mu­ni­ca­tions for Im­pact Con­fer­ence, com­mu­ni­ty screen­ings, and a grand award cer­e­mo­ny to cel­e­brate emerg­ing film­mak­ers. These events aim not on­ly to show­case films but al­so to spark di­a­logue, fos­ter col­lab­o­ra­tion, and in­spire con­tin­ued cre­ative ac­tivism.

At its core, Sus­tain T&T’s work is about cre­at­ing a cul­ture where sus­tain­abil­i­ty isn’t an af­ter­thought, but a guid­ing prin­ci­ple in dai­ly life. By plac­ing the tools of sto­ry­telling in­to the hands of the pub­lic—es­pe­cial­ly the youth—the or­gan­i­sa­tion is sow­ing seeds for a more con­scious, re­silient fu­ture.

As T&T and the wider Caribbean con­front the ac­cel­er­at­ing cli­mate cri­sis and deep­en­ing so­cial in­equal­i­ties, Sus­tain T&T re­minds us that change doesn’t al­ways be­gin in board­rooms or pol­i­cy pa­pers. Some­times, it starts with a sin­gle sto­ry—told in one minute, cap­tured on a phone, and shared in full colour.