Just when you thought that using AI to make a John Hurt horror film that was abandoned sixteen years ago was a brilliant accidental self-promo, New Zealand studio, Odd Global, trumps it with the Odd Forest. For every project Odd Global completes, native trees are planted through Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust, with the number of trees scaled to the overall size of the production and its approximate use of image and video generation. The more a project generates, the more it plants. The initiative, produced with conservation partner, Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust, has launched with 38 native trees already planted across 15 AI productions. The project arrives in the middle of worldwide discussion about the environmental cost of AI – its huge energy needs, volumes of emissions and thirst for the world’s water reserves.

Odd Global’s undertaking to “balance the books” is explained in a film, using deadpan humour and an awkward truths about AI.

The film was produced entirely with generative AI so it, too, planted trees.

Each tree represents a contribution of NZ$50 covering the native tree itself, professional planting labour, and initial maintenance to support establishment. The trees are planted across restoration sites throughout Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū Banks Peninsula, according to ecological need, forming one growing distributed forest. Most of the productions that have planted trees so far are international. Work made for clients in Brazil, the United States and Europe is helping to regenerate nature in the South Island of New Zealand.

The campaign includes a printed-style Field Guide to the Odd Forest, and a counter tallying the trees planted.