Green the City - live on wild commons

We recently launched a new YouTube channel with our friends over at Impact Media Lab to help solve a huge problem that many independent filmmakers are experiencing - a lack of distribution options! Many amazing nature, environmental and science documentaries have successful festival runs, then just sit on a hard drive never to be seen again. The industry has changed, and we needed to find a solution that supports creators and allows them to continue their craft.

So, we co-founded Wild Commons - a YouTube channel which, through a shared platform with shared marketing efforts, gives these films a home and a way for creators to get paid. So, if you want to watch amazing films and support the people who made them, head to our YouTube channel and click subscribe! We release a new film each month, and short films between. If you don’t want to miss a thing, subscribe to our newsletter here.

Anyway, onto the films…

GREEN THE CITY

In a city built on coal, unlikely leaders are rewriting the future.

St. Louis has long been shaped by fossil fuels, but transformation rarely starts in policy rooms. It starts in communities. Green the City follows two people working toward the same goal from very different vantage points: Reverend Rodrick Burton, a pastor at New Northside Missionary Baptist Church, who champions renewable energy as a pathway to equity and community resilience; and Catherine Werner, the city's Sustainability Director, who works from within municipal systems to scale up energy efficiency programs and solar workforce training.

As their efforts begin to intersect, St. Louis emerges as something unexpected: a case study in what climate action looks like when it is grounded in community trust. The film moves between church-led advocacy and citywide initiatives, capturing a turning point in a historically coal-powered city that is beginning to redefine itself as an environmental leader. This is not a story about top-down policy. It is a story about what happens when grassroots and institutional change move in parallel.

Why this film matters

Green the City reframes climate action as something deeply human, driven not just by data or legislation, but by relationships, leadership, and the willingness to build solutions with communities rather than for them. It shows that the most durable change often starts small, local, and personal, and that cities don't need to wait for the perfect conditions to begin.

Head to the Wild Commons website to learn more about the project, why it’s necessary, and explore the films that are currently live.