Theatre sustainability initiative expands across the arts

A new environmental guidebook is encouraging cultural organisations from across the creative industries to take steps to become more sustainable.

The Arts Green Book: Sustainable Buildings, created by Renew Culture and global sustainability experts Buro Happold, is an expansion of the Theatre Green Book launched last year.

It is aimed at owners, operators and renters of cultural spaces, including museums, galleries, music venues and libraries, to explain the purpose of pursuing sustainability and support the transition towards net zero targets.

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Partner at Buro Happold Andrew Wylie says the book is a melding of industry expertise purposefully brought together to empower change and equip the sector as its tackles the climate emergency.

“Having worked extensively within the cultural sector to support theatres through their sustainability journey, this latest publication has been written specifically for art galleries, museums and cultural venues focusing on the journey to achieving sustainable buildings,” Wylie explained.

“I believe that with dedicated adoption, this book has the potential to accelerate the UK cultural sector’s response to the climate emergency.”

The Arts Green Book offers sector-specific advice for different cultural sectors, as well as three steps to help all cultural venues become more sustainable: be lean, by retrofitting walls and roofs to lose less energy, be clean, by retrofitting service systems to use less energy and be green, by drawing energy from renewable sources.

The resource is likely to be useful for those in the sector considering their sustainability efforts after facing unprecedented hikes in their gas and electricity bills. In October, the first ever scoping report into the creative industries and its environmental targets found the sector is well-placed to lead the UK's efforts towards net zero, but requires more government support and research investment to do so.

The new guidebook has received support from Arts Council England (ACE) and Mayor of London Sadiq Khan.

ACE Director for Theatre Neil Darlison said the resource will be vital for the industry in responding to its environmental responsibility, which is part of the funder’s 10-year strategy Let’s Create.

“We appreciate how enthusiastic organisations are to engage in sustainable practice and to find low carbon solutions in their work; this new book will support a broader range of cultural buildings, including museums, performance spaces and libraries, to be able to respond to the climate emergency,” Darlison added.

Guidance for museums

Meanwhile, the Network of European Museum Organisations (NEMO) has released seven guidelines for museums to become more sustainable in a new report on museums and climate change.

Its recommendations to policy makers and the museum sector include facilitating funds for investment into museum infrastructure, so buildings can be maintained in a more energy-efficient, ecological and sustainable manner.

NEMO's report also suggests allocating financial support to upskill and train museum staff on sustainability efforts and ensuring guidelines, standards and reporting requirements are aligned to support sustainability goals.

In a survey of 578 museums from 38 countries included in the report, the main issues impeding museums’ sustainable transition was found to be a lack of funds.

More than half of the museums surveyed reported they do not have any climate-friendly constructions and only two in 10 museums claimed they use a green energy supplier.

Eight in 10 museums said they had acknowledged climate change and sustainability as important strategic topics, but only around four in 10 had methods or criteria in place to measure and assess their sustainability efforts.

In Scotland a Resilience Fund was launched in October to help museums and galleries deal with rising costs by improving the energy efficiency of buildings.