Let’s Change Culture: Embedding climate action in your group
During our most recent Let’s Change Culture session with the Culture Sector in Plymouth we explored ways to embed climate action in our teams and audiences.
Here is a summary of the group’s thinking.
Embed Climate Awareness in Your Team
Lead by Example: Ensure your internal policies reflect sustainability values—whether through travel policies, energy use in workspaces, or digital carbon footprints.
Workplace Norms & Culture: Encourage a culture where climate-conscious choices (e.g., virtual meetings over travel, vegetarian catering, low-carbon materials) are normalised rather than seen as exceptional.
Empower Individuals: Give team members agency over climate actions in their work. Let them explore sustainable options within their roles, set team challenges, or collaborate on green projects.
Training & Reflection: Run sessions where the team can reflect on their relationship with climate action, share ideas, and deepen knowledge about systemic change.
Carbon Accounting & Transparency: Measure and communicate your organisational footprint. Consider an annual report or dashboard showing progress and areas for improvement.
Engaging Your Audience in Climate Action
Creative, Participatory Approaches: The arts create emotional connections. Can you use storytelling, visual art, performance, or hands-on experiences to bring climate narratives to life?
Co-Creation & Agency: Invite audiences to be part of the change rather than just consumers of information. Can they contribute ideas, create something, or take a pledge?
Framing & Storytelling: People connect with positive, empowering narratives. Shift from doom-laden messaging to highlighting solutions, adaptation, and cultural shifts.
Linking Action to Experience: Can participation in a creative project lead to real-world action (e.g., reducing energy use, supporting renewables, changing habits)?
Partnerships & Cross-Sector Work: Work with organisations beyond the arts—energy companies, local councils, community groups—to embed climate awareness in different spaces.
Making Climate Action Unavoidable in Decision-Making
Climate Lens for All Decisions: Make sustainability a consideration in all decision-making—whether in budgeting, project planning, or venue selection. Create a simple checklist for teams to evaluate the environmental impact of their choices.
Sustainable Procurement Policy: Set clear guidelines for materials, energy sources, and suppliers. Prioritise reused, locally sourced, or regenerative options where possible.
Fundraising & Funding Choices: Seek funding sources that align with climate values. Consider divestment from fossil-fuel-related institutions and reinvesting in ethical finance.
Integrating Climate into Everyday Team Practices
Regular Climate Conversations: Include short reflections on sustainability in team meetings. This keeps awareness high and invites new ideas.
Peer-Led Initiatives: Let team members champion aspects of climate action—one might research sustainable materials, another low-carbon digital practices, another circular economy solutions.
Carbon Tracking & Gamification: Encourage friendly competition or collective goals (e.g., reducing waste, choosing sustainable travel, or running carbon-neutral events).
Climate-Positive Perks: If offering incentives (e.g., bonuses, travel budgets), consider alternatives like funding for sustainable home improvements, bicycle subsidies, or tree planting.
Strengthening Audience Engagement through Climate Action
Make Climate Action Tangible: Instead of just talking about climate change, create real-world actions linked to projects—e.g., a participatory artwork powered by solar panels, or a campaign where people make small pledges.
Hyper-Local Storytelling: People care more when they see climate issues reflected in their immediate surroundings. Can you integrate narratives about local landscapes, weather patterns, or cultural shifts?
Art as a Tool for Systems Change: Use creative work to challenge unsustainable systems—whether through protest art, speculative design, or participatory experiences that reimagine a climate-positive future.
Audience Reflection & Commitment: Prompt audiences to reflect on their role in climate action—perhaps through a post-event interactive board, a pledge, or a creative action they can take home.
Transforming Networks & Influence
Shift Industry Expectations: Collaborate with other cultural and energy-sector organisations to set new norms (e.g., sustainability standards for touring, funding criteria for eco-conscious projects).
Advocate for Policy Change: Use creative storytelling to influence local and national policies on climate, energy, and cultural funding.
Train Other Organisations: Share what you learn! Offer workshops, guides, or talks on how the cultural sector can integrate sustainability.
Mentor Emerging Creatives: Support the next generation of climate-conscious artists and cultural leaders by embedding sustainability into training programs or partnerships.
Experimenting & Evolving
Considering green venues and environment: To inspire and shape the work that is produced
Trying out new ways of powering work: For example powered by pedalling - It’s important to get the messaging right around this type of activity
Co-creating work: with partners and participants to explore different subjects and themes.
Prototype Climate-Engaged Workflows: Try new methods—can your meetings be held outdoors, can you tour exhibitions digitally instead of physically, can you experiment with radical sustainability in a single project? (Good to define what we mean by radical sustainability)
Invite Feedback & Iterate: Ask team members and audiences what’s working, what’s inspiring, and where they feel blocked in climate action. Keep evolving your approach based on their insights.
Digital domain
Reduce Digital Carbon Footprint - Use renewable-powered web hosting (e.g., GreenGeeks, Kualo, or EcoWebHosting). Optimise websites to be lightweight and efficient (fewer images, compressed files, minimal tracking scripts). Encourage low-carbon design, e.g., dark mode, simple interfaces, and sustainable UX.
Rethink Digital Content & Streaming - Reduce high-resolution video streaming where possible (offer audio/text alternatives). Use low-data formats (e.g., lighter emails, fewer images, compressed PDFs). Consider "carbon labels" on digital content to show environmental impact.
Sustainable Digital Events & Meetings - Host carbon-conscious online meetings (turn off cameras when not needed, avoid unnecessary recordings). Choose sustainable conferencing platforms and low-energy communication tools (e.g., Miro vs. high-bandwidth alternatives). Where possible, limit cloud storage usage—delete unneeded files regularly.
Ethical & Energy-Aware Digital Tools - Choose eco-conscious software providers that prioritise energy efficiency and ethical data practices. Use search engines like Ecosia that plant trees with ad revenue. Reduce reliance on high-energy AI tools and unnecessary cloud-based applications.
Educate Teams & Audiences on Digital Sustainability - Raise awareness about the carbon impact of digital activity (e.g., streaming, emails, cloud storage). Provide guidelines for sustainable digital behaviors, such as "think before you send" email habits. Share digital sustainability insights through blog posts, talks, or creative projects.
Consider Digital Archiving & Longevity - Avoid excessive digital hoarding—delete outdated files and optimise cloud storage. Invest in sustainable archiving strategies—print key documents where long-term storage is needed. Explore decentralised, low-energy digital storage for important resources.
Take back mailing lists - It may be that those who control the software tools that host our data may become unreliable - we may want to consider reducing our dependency.