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LONG HOR IZONS: AN EXPLORAT ION OF AR T+CLIMAT E CHANGE A collection of personal reflections about art, artists and climate change. Commissioned by the British Council and curated by Julie’s Bicycle featuring contributions from Antony Gormley, Jay Griffiths, Professor Tim Jackson, Professor Diana Liverman and KT Tunstall. a snapshot of artists and organisations currently addressing environmental impacts in their work

Aardvark Records Aaron Wolf AC/DC Adriane Colburn Aggelos Kovotsos Agnes Denes Aimee Mann Alan Boldon Alanis Morrisette Alessandro Marianantoni Alex Hartley Alex Uncapher Alice Cooper Alice Oswald Allen Fisher Allman Brothers Band Almeida Projects Alphonso Arambula Robles Ambassador Theatre Group American Association of Independent Music Aminatu Goumar Amir Berbic Amy Balkin Amy Sharrocks Ana Cecilia Gonzales Vigil Andrea Polli & Chuck Varga Andrej Zdravic Andrew Bird Andrew Dodds Andrew Merritt Andy Goldsworthy Andy Goodman Angela Palmer Ant Farm Anthony Santoro Anthony Utkin Antony Gormley Antti Laitinen Archie Randolph Ammons Architecture for Humanity Arcola Theatre Arnolfini Art Organic Art Smith Artists Project Earth (APE) Arts Admin Arts Northwest ASCAP - American Society of Composers, Authors & Publisher Trust Atlanta Jazz Festival Aurora Robson Ayreen Anastas B.H. Yael Band Shell Music Summit Banker White Barbican Theatre Bash Beattrice Bolleta Beggars Ben Kweller Benicassim Beth Derbyshire Big Chill Big Session Festival Big Tent Bill Woodrow Blue Man Group Bluesfest BoDeans Bonnaroo Boris Bally Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra BPI Brad Pitt Brandi Carlile Brenndan McGuire Brett Dennen Brian Chippendale Brian Jungen Bright Ugochukwu British Council Britten Sinfonia Broadway Green Alliance Bruce Hornsby Bush Bush Theatre Cake Folk Festival Cameron Diaz Candlebox Cape Farewell Carbon Planet Carrie Marrill Cascade Engineering Cate Blanchett Catherine Prose Catherine Slessor City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Central School of Speech and Drama Chloe Hanks Chris Drury Chris Jordan Chris Levine Chris Wainwright Christine Dhein Christine Lee Circus Kinetica Clare Patey Clare Twomey Cloud Cult Club4Climate Coldcut Colin Firth Copenhagen Playhouse Cornelia Parker Crockett Bodelson Croissant Neuf Dallas Murphy Dan Gretton Dan Harvey Dan Peterman Daniel B Gold & Judith Helfand Daniel Weddle Danny Seo Daro Montag Darren Almond Das Fest Matthews Band David Buckland David Cotterrall David Cross David Gilmour David Haley David Hinton David Lan David Nash David W Orr Dennis Lee Dirk Fleishmann Doll Don McKay Download EAG - Green Books Eco Indie Tour Ecoartspace Ecorazzi.com Ed Gillespie Eduardo Kac Edward Burtynsky (Canada) Edward Norton Elisabeth Buecher Elizabeth-Jane Burnett Environmental Media Association (EMA) Emergency Arts EMI Music Emily Hinshelwood Emma Wieslander Eolica ExtInked EXYZT Faber FACT Fall out Boy Feist Fiona Apple Firegathering Foreigner Fran Crowe Francesca Galeazzi Franny Armstrong Frieze Furtherfield.Org Future Sonic 2009: Urban Festival of Art, Music & Ideas, Manchester Environment 2.0 Exhibition Garett Brennan Gary Gulman Gary Hume Gary Snyder Gautier Deblonde Gesche Wuerfel Festival Global America Today Global Exchange Global Inheritance Glyndebourne Gomez Goo Goo Dolls Grace Green Drinks Green Hands USA Green Music Alliance Green Notes Green Owl Green Thumb Theatre Green TV Greener Summer Sustainable Music Festivals Gretel Ehrlich Grizedale Arts Guillermo Calzadilla Gustav Metzger Gwyneth Paltrow Hans Haacke Harriete Estel Hasse Wester Heath Bunting Heather & Ian Morison Heather Ackroyd Helen Mayer Harrison Henrick Hakanson Hi'may Rivera Hindu Kush Hinterland Symposium Hootie & The Blowfish Hot Buttered Rum String Band Howard Theatre Huang Zhijian Hultfred Festival Hyde Park Calling Ian Connacher Ian L McHarg Ian McEwan IFEA - International Festivals and Event Association Illosarirock Incubus Inform (Organisation) Festival ITC (Independent Theatre Council) J William Thompson Jackie Eco Jacques Nimki Jake Gyllenhaal James Corbett James Marriott James Taylor Jan Zwicky Jane Langley Jason Griffiths Jay Griffiths Jennifer Allora Jeremy Deller Jess Brass Jimmy Buffett Jimmy Fike Joanna Callaghan Joe Gerhardt John Dewey John Jordan John Kinsella John Linden John Newling John Ruskin Johnny Hines Jonathan Dove Jools Johnson Jose Gonzalez Joseph Beuys Josh Ritter Jude Kelly Julia Goodman Julian H Scaff Julian Stair Justin Timberlake Karen Michel Kasia Ozga & Valentina Loi Kate Rich Kate Thompson Kathleen Egan Kathy Barber Kayle Brandon Keith Tyson Kelley Stoltz Kelly Clarkson Kevin Richardson Kew Kim Sorvig Klaus Weber Koekoek Kris Martin Krisanne Baker KT Tunstall Lara Almarcegui Latitude Laurie Anderson Lemn Sissay Leonardo DiCaprio Les Recontres Transmusicales de Rennes Les Trans Musicales de Rennes Liam Frost Linda Weintraub Live Nation Liverpool Everyman Playhouse Liz Jensen Symphony Orchestra Lou McCurdy Louis Fox Lovebox Luc Besson Luca Morino Lucy & Jorge Orta Ludacris & Tommy Lee Luke Bullen Maggie O'Sullivan Maná Manchester Evening News Arena (cont. page 41 ) >> LONG HOR IZONS: AN EXPLORAT ION OF AR T+CLIMAT E CHANGE foreword british council

The purpose of the British Council, the UK’s preoccupations: our humour, our fears, our sense international organisation for cultural relations, is to of ourselves. Arts makes our society more build engagement and trust for Britain through the comprehensible to those outside it and as such is a exchange of knowledge and ideas between people powerful addition to any cultural relations work. worldwide. Climate change is one of the defining It seems appropriate that the work of many British issues of the age, with far-reaching impacts on all artists is already reflecting a growing concern aspects of our lives as well as upon the natural about climate change and the need for solutions. environment. It will affect everyone on the planet, The museum and music sectors particularly are though differences in infrastructure and locality will already changing the way that they make and profoundly influence vulnerability. Impacts will be present their work but artists from all disciplines social and cultural as well as environmental and are beginning to frame the climate change crisis in economic, and solutions need to be social and powerful and moving ways through their art. cultural as well as technical and scientific. Art and artists can help move the climate change We believe that cultural relations, which works by agenda from intellectual understanding to bringing people together to find common purpose emotional engagement, and then on to action. beyond the range of traditional government-to- We want to encourage artists to take their part in government diplomacy, has an important demystifying and energising the debate. contribution to make in the fight against climate The challenge of climate change is international change. In challenging times, relationships of trust and inter-connected in nature, and any attempt to between citizens and their governments may waver create change needs to happen regardless of and the less formal networks of shared interest and national boundaries, and on a global scale. understanding to which we can all contribute The British Council, with its extensive networks, is become even more crucial. It is via these links with one of a small number of agencies able to develop colleagues and peers across the world that dialogues and communities of interest around this accurate information can be disseminated, subject worldwide. We will continue to work with potential solutions debated and collective partners who can in turn disseminate information commitments made. The British Council works with and ideas through their own networks, and by partners in order to develop shared trust and doing so reach far greater numbers of people than values and to remove the barriers that currently single actions ever could. Together we can prevent finding a global solution to this crisis. strengthen understanding of the need for action, of We want to promote a mutual understanding of the the role that artists can play in the fight against need for joint action and for innovative responses. climate change, and of the need to support and Working with art and artists in order to build encourage that role. relationships of mutual understanding is one of the British Council's core activities. In addition to the Sally Cowling inspiration that they can offer, artists are frequently David Viner at the forefront of cultural change. Their work and the way they work may often articulate, in an extraordinarily effective way, Britain's

britishcouncil.org/longhorizons 1 contents

introduction 3 julie’s bicycle

the far-seers of art 5 jay griffiths

sound and vision 9

art in the time of global warming 13 antony gormley

keeping out the giraffes 17 professor tim jackson

seeking inspiration: a scientist turns to the cultural sector 21 professor diana liverman

contributors 26

appendices i) overview of UK cultural policy and climate change 29 ii) resources and tools 37 iii) glossary 39

2 britishcouncil.org/longhorizons LONG HOR IZONS: AN EXPLORAT ION OF AR T+CLIMAT E CHANGE introduction julie’s bicycle

The pressing issues of climate change and material consumption for its health. When sustainability, shaping our present and future, are politicians disappoint and science is not enough, permeating every corner of our business, through artistic engagement with climate change can legislation, markets, artistic voice and industrial invigorate the issue from a new angle. Above all infrastructure. It has always been my primary art distils for us our common humanity; it ambition to support the best in new music and we questions and puzzles and challenges. The arts have spent many years understanding the can feel and express what Jay Griffiths describes opportunities and challenges posed by the digital as ‘long horizons’, views of the world that take in age while maintaining that commitment to the time-scales of climate change but offer deeper excellence. Now another epoch has arrived, a much and wider perspectives than science alone can more profound age which requires a total and rapid bring. market transformation that puts sustainability and The last five years has seen a proliferation of environmental respect at its core. We must help our creative responses to the environment; art and creative businesses shift and adapt so that we can artists who are inspired to think, create and act. all continue to support the best and finest in the But often the arts infrastructure does not put arts. climate change and sustainability at its heart. It is Tony Wadsworth Chairman, Julie’s Bicycle inherently problematic if, say, an artist is releasing an album inspired by climate change without paying attention to generating as little carbon as It is an extraordinary collective consciousness that possible in the production. many of us inhabit today. We live comfortably with deeply uncomfortable information irritating the This collection of essays, commissioned by the edge of our thoughts. This information, drawn from British Council and curated by Julie’s Bicycle, the rich evidence of thousands of scientists, tells offers the perspectives of scientists and artists, us that the earth’s climate is warming inexorably, their questions and a few answers. Each ecosystems and species are in crisis, and we have contributor has engaged profoundly with climate finite time and resources left to deal with it. In a change – they live by it. Each contributor has rational account of this dilemma disaster would be interpreted the relationship between art and averted, the narrative would conclude with sustainability personally, so that science and art, humanity restored. Common sense and heroes both calling on creativity of the highest order, blur would prevail. But common sense isn’t functioning as disciplines. For all these contributors the quest as it should and our global crisis cannot be solved for sustainability in their life and their work has with the effort of even several heroic individuals. become a source of inspiration, a vital defining It needs much stronger intervention. force within their lives.

At the heart of our necessary metamorphosis is Jay Griffiths’ piece calls for high culture to ground the removal of greenhouse gases from the planet’s itself in its roots, in cultivating care for the natural stifled biosphere. This requires reconfiguring our world. She describes art’s potent ability to remind resource consumption, deploying technology, and us of our place within nature and to give visceral adjusting our lifestyles in order to achieve a power to the reality of climate change. Her writing substantial reduction in carbon emissions. We is imbued with hope, joy and conviction in the need to do this now if we want to preserve some ultimately redeeming power of art to express choice and flexibility in shaping our destiny. intrinsic meanings about humanity and the opportunity we have to determine our future. The arts should have a pivotal role in this Antony Gormley sees that climate change metamorphosis. Art can shape and shift challenges some of our dearest-held beliefs: perceptions; it is a form of dialogue, it creates technologically-driven progress and endless languages between people unbounded by growth. He questions art’s complicity in these nationality, ethnicity, religion or class. Art has the cultural assumptions and calls us to fundamentally capacity to transcend any particular issue or re-examine the role of art and the artist in relation moment; it reflects and reviews the experience of to climate change and the natural world. KT being human. Art does not require voracious Tunstall is joyously pragmatic and urges all those

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involved in the business of art to sort out their artists as communicators. Climate scientists, own environmental impacts. Professor Diana struggling to communicate the dangers of Liverman, a climate scientist for many years, asks complacency, are calling on the arts community to for more support from the cultural sector, both to help out. But too prescriptive an application of the address its own operations and also – crucially – arts to climate change is fraught with tension. to support the scientific community’s attempts to Artists will not want their work to be propaganda. communicate. And Professor Tim Jackson muses Climate change cannot be resolved through the on the complex but transformative role that art celebration of a single individual’s efforts or the has in relation to sustainability and our future. gallant actions of a few, but through the collective He suggests that it is through the artistic process efforts of many. This effort must extend beyond itself that society will place sustainability at its borders. The framework for climate negotiations heart, drawing upon art’s ability to articulate a takes national obligation and interest as its starting vision of the future, a resolution of conflicts and a point: can the arts’ sinuous movements across the consolation for our failures. globe help us understand the shared implications We should not have to live with the apparent of our choices? This collection has five different paradox whereby we want the arts to actively and valuable perspectives each of which is campaign for action on climate change, whilst contributing to a bigger whole. And as such it also understanding that art is not forced. This challenges the focus on the individual, the paradox is effortlessly solved when we assign celebrity icon, as the holder of truth and influence. responsibilities appropriately: actors must play in All these responses to climate change and low energy theatres, musicians should record in sustainability are different and nuanced; they will solar powered studios, film sets should be sourced speak to different people and perspectives. from sustainable forest and audiences should We should start now and build a knowledge base know it. Then it’s up to the artists to do their work. that will mandate cultural leaders to act. We must Much of that work will have nothing to do with understand what resources (knowledge and climate change; some of it might inspire millions to financial), mechanisms (guidance and standards) think in a new way about the planet. The choice of and future expectations of transparency and subject is up to the artists but scientists and accountability will be required. That means a policymakers can at least make them aware of the shared international ambition, with the vision and choices. processes that can embed sustainability deeply Perhaps we should start by recognising that the into culture. arts share an industrial base with other sectors in The power of change lies in knowledge and the global economy. We heat and cool, lighten and collaborative action. darken, open and close our buildings, manufacture spectacle. We create, display and reproduce art It also lies within the experience of art itself. and artefacts. We tour and travel and our We cannot ask artists to ‘do’ climate change but audiences follow in huge numbers. All this requires we can engage with, help, encourage and respond energy – significant amounts of it – and most of it to those artists who choose to make climate is drawn from fossil fuels. Art has a real carbon change a key part of their work, and perhaps they footprint. We need to find out what our will inspire the rest of us to action. All of the environmental impact is and how we can manage contributors are writing as artists or as scientists – it. Then we could examine our expectations of we need to listen to what they have to say.

Alison Tickell

4 britishcouncil.org/longhorizons the far-seers of art jay griffiths ‘IT IS IN ART THAT SOCIETY FINDS ITS LONG HORIZONS, ITS SWEEP OF AGES. ART DANCES A WALTZ WITH TIME; THE THREE STEPS OF PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE WHICH CAN SWING TOMORROW INTO THE ARMS OF TODAY, SHOWING SOCIETY WHERE IT IS GOING, AND CAN TAKE A TURN WITH YESTERDAY TO SHOW SOCIETY WHERE IT HAS COME FROM. WITH CLIMATE CHANGE, THE FAR-SEERS OF ART ARE A REQUISITE.’

britishcouncil.org/longhorizons 5 the far-seers of art jay griffiths

Picture this. The audience is watching a Rebalancing the relationship between human performance of She Stoops to Conquer, dressed to communities and the natural world is a feature of kill, in feathers and pearls, bowties and waistcoats. shamanism, and artists play that same role, a role Floodwater, meanwhile, is lapping around the which needs and deserves public support through paving stones outside. By Act Two the water has policy priorities, through funding and through risen, up through the foyer and along the hallways recognition that this rebalancing role at the core and corridors, and by Act Four it has reached the of deep art is now urgent in response to the front rows. The audience stares rigidly at the unbalanced chaos of climate. ‘The spring, the stage, ignoring the water, not stooping to notice summer, the childing autumn, angry winter, change mere nature and necessity seeping into their their wonted liveries; and the mazed world, by shoes. their increase, now knows not which is which,’ wrote Shakespeare, to describe human dissension There is an absolute, irrefutable reality to climate written into the very seasons. His work is rooted in change, as real as wet shoes and rotting carpet. a sense of balance between humanity and nature. It is larger than politics, as wide as ocean currents, and its effects are the realities of survival and life. It is in art that society finds its long horizons, its Artists – writers, sculptors, musicians and poets – sweep of ages. Art dances a waltz with time; the have responded to this, turning reality into three steps of past, present and future which can artwork, because so many artists have a political swing tomorrow into the arms of today, showing compass magnetised towards common humanity. society where it is going, and can take a turn with yesterday to show society where it has come from. Distilling an image to one drop of pure turquoise, With climate change, the far-seers of art are a and with this one drop colouring the waters of requisite. society, artists effect a sea-change. It is their role to do this, to illustrate, to cast light on subjects, Society has a long relationship with artists, a the light by which society sees more truly and tryst of ages, trusting artists to act as its collective more richly. Artists are messengers across conscience; medieval Welsh bards were legislators boundaries, for art transcends the confines of – judges as well as poets. But science can be nationality – it is an emissary of kind universality. terrified of taking a moral position, as if that would Climate change forces the need for a greater undermine its authority (although arguably this intercultural communication than ever before, and abnegation is a corruption of its authority). There artists – those with the keenest hearing and has been an enormous shift within academia perfect pitch – can tell the stories of things recently as climate scientists, in desperation at the unimagined, making immediate the experience of devastation they foresee, break their own rules in people unknown. Art can do this, collapsing order to speak truth to those in power. It is an act distance, creating the empathy of nearness, art so of courage for them to do so, but it is a role they close that it leaves its eyelash on your cheek as it would rather not play; and they need the voices of passes. poets to speak those truths as well. For writers and artists have a duty of care to society, The climate is a commons – a shared, equal and musicians and poets are legislators of the soul- invaluable source of life, both international and world. Good translators are required, not to intercultural – and all nations hold it in common. translate from one actual language into another, The effects of climate change will bring Lear’s but to translate between worlds, from the world of storms and hurricanes to the heath: ‘Blow, winds, science to the world of imagination, rendering and crack your cheeks!’ and these things need scientific realities of statistics and graphs into good messengers on the heath of common warm and human parables, paintings and plays. humanity. Artists are shape-shifters and in this there is a Art can speak in sudden language, with the perennial, ferocious hope; the hope which temerity of a howl in the restaurant: electric, transforms, which whispers of possibility, of vision, implacable and now. Artists transport significance of change and radical healing. Existing art about through metaphor, literally a ‘carrying across’. climate change has this characteristic, There is a shamanic aspect to this and artists are, acknowledging the truth and severity of the issue like shamans, movers between worlds, between but also affirming within it something of grace, the visible world and the invisible one, able to heal seeing the starlight within the night. individuals and society. Art can work above- ground, in the heightened, precise super-realism When the rhetoric of climate change concentrates of social portraiture, but also below-ground, on the catastrophic, the result is a freezing-over of working different and deeper spells of restitution the psyche, a paralysis of the will. All ice-axe and on the invisible realm of symbolism. question marks, art tilts and urges on, on, finds a

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new tense, the future-possible, for its verbs. disobedient streak which my art demands: I can’t Art can be playful, splitting the moment, jumping even tell myself what to do. For artists with a the line, burgling predictability. Art can offer the sense of responsibility, a sense of politics, it can juxtaposition from which springs movement, some be very to demand of themselves that they russet meaning or winter resonance, some dawn create a work ‘about’ an ‘issue’. While the political of unequivocal urgency. Climate change involves part of oneself is outlining the imperative, the textures of complexity (political, environmental, creative aspect of oneself is untameable, off the social, legal) which art can comprehend, for the leash, gainsaying. Yet work on climate change is best of art draws maps of difficult landscapes. perhaps produced so readily because we, as human beings, are coming to dwell with the Art’s job is not propaganda. Propaganda aims for knowledge of it, coming to know it in our bones. the cliché and, in attempting to speak to everyone, Compared to any other issue, climate change has speaks in fact to no one. Art takes an idiosyncratic a seismic and ineluctable enormity, and we inhabit line; the more surely envoiced the artist becomes, this knowledge because we must. One thing it will the stronger the response to their work. You can cause is a change of climate within. see agit-prop coming a mile away, barging along the street towards you, giving you time to turn the This isn’t a verbal sleight of hand, it isn’t a gently other way or shake it warmly by the hand. Art can punning metaphor, it is a description written right steal up more quietly, coming alongside, maybe at the edge of the future fact. We need a change with a scent of jasmine or rum, speaking intrigue. in the climate of art. The situation which we face as humans demands to be matched at every level; The issue of climate change needs persuasion philosophical, political, pragmatic and personal. rather than propaganda and art understands the The role of art institutions is now truly cultural; to psychology of persuasion. It is hard to allow create the culture which nurtures nature, not only oneself to be drawn by overt dogma, which is human nature but all forms of nature. This is delivered in the daylight areas of the mind. neither a hobby nor a luxury. It is not a Status- Art works in the shuttered twilights where Impact Event. It is an exigency which affects darkness bestows a tenderness and protection, a everything, from the blunt demand for emissions- secret place where the psyche feels safe enough reductions within institutions to the tenor of our to alter. It is always easier to change one’s mind in language and the cast of our thought. the dark. But there is a narrow strand of aesthetics which Artists know their place is the edge, fertile, suggests that art should not stoop to this actual enigmatic, tricksterish. And the edge is not the world of nature and environmental event, as if same as a limit. A limit is the place of absolute leaning towards this earthy world would finiteness or of wise cessation; the limits of natural undermine art’s tantalising artifice or soil the law or, in terms of climate change, the necessary spangly fascinator. This sour cast of thought and just limiting of emissions. An edge, by suggests that art should be ‘above’ moral issues, contrast, is a place of maximum tension, a place of as if art should never dirty itself with matter, as if paradox, creative by its own geometry; a place of the artist should stand at one remove, should apparent contradictions which art explores and never treat as equals the cabinet members of the transcends. Maldives in suits and oxygen tanks, six metres The distinction between the Edge and the Limit underwater, holding their cabinet meeting can be related to the distinction between Freedom amongst the fish in the turquoise seas, to and Licence. Claiming they are acting in the name demonstrate their nation’s vulnerability to climate of ‘freedom’, modern states, allowing uncurbed change. carbon emissions, actually promote licence, the According to that way of thinking, ‘culture’ is the licence for individuals to use more than their opposite of ‘nature’, the rise of artifice has firmly carbon quota, the licence of industries to provoke defeated the pastoral, and art is in a position of climate change, the licence of wealthy nations to enmity towards the real, natural world. But for take more than their fair share, the licence of most of human history culture has been rooted in corporations to bully governments and lie to the nature, as language tells. In its classical sense, media. More licence is not needed. But more culture was effectively the honouring of the freedom is. The freedom which art knows, the cultivation of nature, from ‘cultus’ meaning freedom which results in a transcendence of vision cultivation, tending, care and respectful treatment. and a change of heart. We humans are part of nature. We are animal It is, of course, notoriously hard to tell artists what before we are human and our embodiment in the to do. I know, as a writer, the fiendishly world is our primal truth. The sour strand in

britishcouncil.org/longhorizons 7 the far-seers of art jay griffiths

aesthetics dislikes this fact and hides it, making it a So, yes, we need a change in this kind of climate, great Unsaid in the halls of art, insisting instead on which involves culture going not ‘back’ to its roots art’s superiority to nature, scorning the but ‘down’ to its roots, profound in the deep earth, ineluctability of climate change by the self-deceit in the root of the word cultus: nurturing care and of exclusivity. Humanity deserves better. Climate respect, and offering truths to humanity. change demands more, requires looking beyond In its evidence and reliable data, science offers its the narrow confines of space and time. truths, but from art we need truths of a different The culture of high culture has to shift, has to order: Protean, yes, unpredictable, yes, stoop to the floodwater and dare to touch the disobedient, yes, but truths nonetheless; earth itself. The unexamined prejudice against metaphoric, spiral truths, because we are not nature within aesthetics will come to seem as wholly rational creatures. It is not knowledge that vacuous and cruel as racism or sexism for, despite we lack but parables to embody it and ethics to the pretence that culture is antagonistic to nature, sustain the implementation of that knowledge. It is it never really has been. If you watch carefully, through stooping that art conquers, Lear on the you’ll catch them glancing at each other, a look of heath, finding his common humanity on the shy recognition of a relationship never truly common ground. This is the profound task of art, sundered. Take the Forest of Arden out of to find seeds of transcendence deep in the dark Shakespeare, shake the linnet from the leaf, snatch and minding earth. the moon from Neruda, silence the Rite of Spring, take, in other words, all nature out of culture, and what do you have left? A few shoddy catalogues and a tax return.

8 britishcouncil.org/longhorizons sound and vision kt tunstall ‘IF BUSINESS CREATES A SUPPORTIVE OPERATING FRAMEWORK FOR THE ARTIST IT WILL MAKE IT EASIER FOR US TO TAKE ON THE ROLE OF COMMUNICATING WITH OUR AUDIENCES. FROM THIS POSITION OUR ART WILL HAVE INTRINSIC INTEGRITY SO THAT WE AS ARTISTS CAN SPEAK OUT WITH CONFIDENCE AND STRENGTH.’

britishcouncil.org/longhorizons 9 sound and vision kt tunstall

As a touring musician, I see that for the duration hate being preached at on any subject and it’s of a show it is possible to create a brand new horrific if the preacher is a phoney. We must community. It can be of any size, any nationality, approach our messaging from a place of honesty and any creed; and providing I act as a positive and humility. I believe this boils down to making force towards the audience, there can be simple, strong, practical choices that, if we decide moments of genuine, meaningful collective to speak out, will vindicate our words. euphoria. These thousands of strangers have Artists as individuals, and in their work-related shared something. People often remember such communities, can implement meaningful change moments for the rest of their lives. I know I do. as well as respectfully invoking their connection I feel deeply that these instances of collective with their audiences. An artist has a voice, but positivity are breeding grounds for meaningful more importantly, has an influence in a complex change. If you feel good, it is possible to imagine way – through their attitudes and the implicit better things. values in their behaviour as evidenced in their actions, how they live. The integrity of an artist is Music for me is a necessity in life; I am imbued communicated by combining words with deeds, with an intrinsic feeling that I couldn’t and style with content. shouldn’t ever give it up, regardless of any attached success. Part of the reason for believing I don’t see this as being a pressured decision to this is that I recognise that in some very deep way, do all or nothing; I believe it is about doing music can transcend language, can communicate something. Admittedly, none of this sounds much beyond explicit meaning, and therefore has the like rock and roll, but I don’t believe that living a power to capture imagination, bring people more climate-responsible life need be exclusive of together, and draw attention to any issue. After the fun, the escapism or the bohemian lifestyles seeing an artist I love, I feel cracked like an egg. I that music is celebrated for. There seems to be an am opened. A significant part of my motivation to assumption that a life lived which is be a musician comes from the knowledge that I environmentally responsible will be a life less am able to provide that experience for others; it is fulfilled and, as an artist belonging to an industry an incredibly fulfilling transaction. justly criticised for excess, I say that from the inside. Without challenging this assumption we are In light of all this, do I have a responsibility as an consigning much of our world to uncertain and artist to communicate my feelings on important dangerous prospects. issues? After all, here I am, on stage in a room full of grinning people who feel connected to each And for the record, there are many artists doing other - open. The importance of climate change something. It might not be everything and overwhelms all other issues and encapsulates so sometimes we all get it wrong. Our whole-hearted much – our environment, our sense of humanity enthusiasm for biofuels blinded us to the across continents and cultures, our responsibility consequences for existing agriculture and to social justice and global equity, our value deforestation. But this is not a good reason to sit systems, our futures and our self-respect. We back on our haunches and wait for the perfect would be mad not to talk about it. solution. It will never come. We need to get on and make the difference now. So yes, I feel I have a responsibility to get involved and push for change. Music and climate change have this is common: they are universal forces that disregard But for the artist, acting as a messenger on geographic and cultural boundaries. I spend a lot climate change can be fraught with risks of a of time in other countries, as do all successful media and fan storm and we find ourselves almost musicians – it’s part of the job. Many in the invariably ducking charges of hypocrisy. international artistic community care deeply about Increasingly I see artists hesitate, aware of a the future of our planet. If an artist commits to virulent press that is keen to identify the smallest climate responsible actions, and speaks out on mistake. If we get it wrong we risk spectacular climate change, people will hear and take notice. public exposure. I must point out that if artists The capacity of the individual artist to raise have a responsibility, so too does the media. We all awareness is significant; so imagine the force of a need to move to a more supportive mindset and united artistic community. We urgently need to understand that every positive effort is significant, come together on this issue, to be unafraid to including ours as artists. speak out. The potential knock-on effects of a In this difficult terrain it becomes imperative that global community of artists bringing about change we get our facts straight, keep up with new in the way things are done could be enormously information and look hard at ourselves. I myself far-reaching.

10 britishcouncil.org/longhorizons sound and vision kt tunstall

It is easy to become disillusioned by the facts and information, advice, and experience will be shared figures, to feel a sense of futility, but consider between as many artists as possible and hopefully slavery as an of cultural transformation. can become a go-to resource for any artist There was huge opposition to abolition but not wishing to get involved with climate change. enough to prevent the eventual transformation. So it isn’t just about speaking out, though that is Right now 23 million people across East Africa are always really helpful. We can only succeed if we facing critical shortages of food and water after can rely on our artistic infrastructure to support successive years of failed rains and worsening us. It requires the entire artistic community – not drought. Just as was the case in the abolition of just the artists, but the managers, funders, policy- slavery, our responsibility as human beings and as makers, agents, studios and venues, the tours and artists is to connect with this tragedy. This is productions as well as the audiences – to heed compelling; we know that the excesses of the climate change and reduce the negative impacts richer nations are responsible for the suffering of of our own making. We need to come together as the poor. Solutions to climate change must put a creative community and understand that we are climate justice at their heart. responsible, today, now, as well as in the future, for The music industry has been working for several untold suffering when we needlessly waste years across the supply chain to develop climate precious resources. We are much bigger as a responsible initiatives, such as energy community of shared interest; our sum is much management in venues, lower carbon CD greater than our parts. packaging, and best practice guides, all of which If the music business creates a supportive strengthen the artist’s capacity to speak out about operating framework for the artist it will make it climate change. Accurate science is hugely easier for us to take on the role of communicating important: for example, knowing that a card CD with our audiences. From this position our art will package as compared to the usual plastic case have intrinsic integrity so that we as artists can can produce a staggering 95% less carbon speak out with confidence and strength. emissions. What’s more, research has shown that the majority of music buyers would prefer a card We can all live within the planet’s miraculous case to an unattractive, easily breakable, plastic natural supply of resources if we are fair, one. Many retailers are happy to support the intelligent, and treat all its inhabitants with care. initiative, so why are there still millions of plastic We could catapult over all the apocalyptic jewel cases entering the marketplace every year? warnings and make with our art a positive, Is it simply because not enough of us are sustainable vision of the future. I’m so blessed to challenging the status quo? be part of this creative community and I’m very aware of my responsibility as an artist to the I recently read an article about the knock-on people who are enriched by my songs, as I am effects of educating children into greener at enriched by others. The creative force of the arts school. Once a child is convinced they nag their demolishes petty differences and national parents into green submission, changing the whole boundaries and brings us together in memorable family’s habits. Just think: one school responsible shared experiences. It is possible to imagine a for an entire community changing attitudes and global community that has sustainability and behaviours. Artists could surely do this; nag until fairness as core values and we, as artists, can help you get what you want. I am going to nag my turn those thoughts into lifetime habits. I’m excited record label for card CD packaging and hey, if about what’s to come. that’s what people want to buy, no record label is going to argue.

I am leading the establishment of ‘GreenmyBand’, a partnership of artists looking at the measures within our control. We are working to address our own operations – how do we “green” tours, gigs, merchandise, CDs, and put into practice carbon reduction as recording and touring musicians. The

britishcouncil.org/longhorizons 11 ‘Another Place’ Antony Gormley, 1997. Photograph by Helmut Kunde, Kiel. © the artist. by Photograph 1997. Place’ Antony Gormley, ‘Another

12 britishcouncil.org/longhorizons art in the time of global warming antony gormley ‘THERE IS A STRONG CONNECTION BETWEEN THE DESIRE FOR SURVIVAL AND THE ART OF A PEOPLE AND A TIME.’

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I have just driven through the Hatfield Tunnel. language, farming, printing, the industrial Above it are factory outlet shops that sell revolution, the information revolution and now, overproduced goods at reduced prices to bargain maybe, the most critical and difficult revolution of hunters. The tunnel is long and I imagine that the all: a complete reversal of many of the values that shops are plenty. These out-of-town malls are we have held dear. We can no longer assume that satellites of emergent in-town superstores, like the more is better. We have to change our cultural new Westfield at Shepherds Bush and the newer heroes from generals and captains of industry to one that will be at Stratford East on the Olympic meditators and mediators, from Rambo and site. Art is similarly involved in a system of Terminator to Ghandi and the Dalai Lama. exchange and distribution that involves in-town Our tool systems, no longer stone, having and out-of-town franchises which might, as with separated us from the rest of the planet and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, first spread biosphere, are now what will, without this downtown, then to Bilbao, then to Berlin and finally revolution, destroy both. The notion that human to Abu Dhabi; or the Tate making outposts in life was going to be improved by an empirical Liverpool and St. Ives, then expanding itself into march of tool-making that would make life Bankside and now expanding again. Art has stronger, longer and safer is challenged by the fall- seemingly become enmeshed in the same out effects of this very technology. Technology processes of expansion and growth that have that was in some senses made to make life better characterised late capitalism everywhere with its has now become the problem. system of exchange, communication and distribution. But of course art is not technology, it is useless but vital; it is through art that we communicate But of course this bland comparison does not what it feels like to be alive. When you ask ‘what is really wash. Shops are there to satisfy inflated the point of art?’ you could reformulate the desires. Art galleries contain forms and question to ‘what is the point of human beings?’ experiences that inspire, question and extend human experience. Art is the way that life tests At the British Museum is a carving of two reindeer and expresses itself, without which we are already crafted from a mammoth tusk made twelve dead. thousand years ago. The artist’s depiction of the antlers pressed against the flanks of the female in But what happens to your enthusiasm in belonging front and stag at the rear, the winter markings of and contributing to this system of distribution the coat and the rendering of the eyes are the when you are told that we have ninety six months result of acute observation and enormous before we reach the tipping point whereby the empathy with the life of these animals. It was by feedback systems of man-made global warming following the seasonal migrations of reindeer that take over – probably resulting in tens of millions of modern Europeans survived between ice ages. climate-change refugees displaced and homeless When swimming across a glacial melt river the by the end of this century? deer were easily hunted. The making of this object In facing the challenges of global climate crisis in was an expression of connection, identification a culture which encourages us to do more, with the continuation of life, its interconnectivity produce more, be seen more – my initial response both in sex and in death and by inference the is paralysing fear; I want to shrink, to go into a human position within a chain of being. hibernating state with minimum muscular effort What is the basis of art? There is a strong and put minimal demand on any kind of fuel. connection between the desire for survival and the This position is not helpful but perhaps is a good art of a people and a time. We have a task in hand. place to start to rethink one’s place in the world. Culture in the developed western world has always positioned itself in distinction to nature: now we The carbon crisis calls for a re-examination of our have to discover our nature within nature. faith in the technological basis of Western progress. A change in belief is a cultural change; A Constable cloud study at the V&A: a small sketch art and artists are implicated. As Paul Ehrlich and in oil and pigment on board captures that most others have pointed out human evolution has been fleeting of things, the effect of sunlight on water driven by cultural rather than biological change; vapour in our atmosphere. Here are ever-changing our brain size, synaptic activity, physical forms that evoke time, space and the act of being characteristics have not changed much in the last itself, but also an invitation to empathise with the million or so years. What has changed has been exchange systems in our atmosphere. Single dry the material culture that we have made and which brush strokes capture high cirrus against the thin has in turn made us, from stone tool-making, cold high air while rotating brush strokes evoke

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the lower nimbus clouds that form hovering . . . thus live these – I had almost said happy – masses of white just above our heads. This sketch people, content with little nay almost nothing. Far is another object that locates us within the enough removed from the anxieties attending scheme of things evoking our ability to engage in upon riches or even the possession of what we elemental exchanges. Europeans call common necessaries. . . From them appear how small are the real wants of I feel powerless, locked into a system and human nature, which we Europeans have infrastructure that I cannot control, built on the increased to an excess which would certainly basis on infinite growth that is unsustainable both appear incredible to these people could they be in terms of demography and resources; people, air, told it. Nor shall we cease to increase them as water and food. How can I avoid making situations long as luxuries have been invented and riches worse? How do I justify my life or indeed this found. . . culture as a whole? This was the problem keenly felt and left unsolved at the recent climate Rising sea levels are destroying the of negotiations in Copenhagen. How can there be a Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands (amongst consensus on resource use when half of the others) as a result of too much CO2 in the developing world wants to experience the same atmosphere put there by us and yet they are level of modern living as us and wants to undergo furthest away from the benefits and excesses the last three hundred years of Western through which our industrialised world has enjoyed development in a sixth of the time? itself. Yeats said that it was suffering that transforms intelligence into a soul but how many An overcast sky, a dark river and a distant town. tornadoes in Tottenham or floods in Cumbria will it A naked woman sits on the ground and suckles a take to create a soul brave enough to change? baby under a stunted holm-oak, sheltered by It is a cruel fact that the people of Tuvalu are the bushes. Opposite her on a low brick plinth capped ones who are suffering for our sins and they are by stone rise two broken pillars. To the side and too far away for their soul to have influence on our front of this altar a fully clothed man stands intelligence. nonchalantly holding a staff in his right hand. He is smartly dressed with slashed breaches and a fine Is it possible to re-think art and take it from this linen shirt with white and red leggings. He looks finished-object status and make it into a verb, a over to the naked woman, she looks at us. We are participatory, open space, a place of involved in this scene that is as engaging and transformation and the exchange of ideas and enigmatic as when it was painted nearly half a reflection on our state and status? Can we use art millennium ago. It’s Georgione’s The Tempest and as a way of investigating this perilous time? Can hangs at the Academia in Venice. Here we are held we change from our obsession with production by an atmosphere partly meteorological, partly values? Instead of the perfection of an Asprey’s psychological. Lightning is striking in the distance catalogue or the gloss of the desirable branded behind the town where the sky is blackest. The object can we accept that art has to find its own effect of the work envelops us in that moment in raw and direct way of existing? It was great to see the storm before the rain where the world and an old bleached-out photograph in a recent article everything in it is waiting to change: continuity, on Boltanski – art needs to have its own genuine future, life, love, nature – everything hangs in the patina, communicating its journey into the world. balance. In the turbine hall at Tate Modern the light is Has our confidence in human continuity strange, the air is thick, it is summer but cool. undermined our ability to make art at all? Art, Adjusting to the orange, yellow, modern frequency certainly Western art, has been an expression of light coming from a great disc in the ceiling, and dependent on confidence: confidence in a people are moving slowly. Some lie on the ground. culture’s lifestyle and in its continuity in the future. I had a distant impression that there were bats Now art undermines and investigates systems of hanging from the ceiling, they moved, black power and, rather than projecting stable traditional silhouettes scuttling. Looking carefully at the values into the future, questions the viability of any golden light source I realised it was a half disc kind of future at all. We have to re-evaluate the pressed against a mirrored ceiling and that the function of art within the frame of a sustainable mirror stretched the entire length of the turbine lifestyle best exemplified by those societies that hall. The disk was mirrored so that it became have had little technological advance. circular and complete, we were mirrored, I was mirrored in the ceiling, these were not bats, they Ever since Joseph Banks visited Tahiti and wrote in were us. Passing under the bridge I laid down 1770 of the Tahitians: amongst others who were in the picture on the

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ceiling: we could change it. I waved to myself, How do I justify the work and life of this studio with someone waved back. I was in a picture that was its ten thousand square feet of heated space and unfolding, I was inside an artificial world that was seventeen daily assistants? In the final analysis I unfolding through and with us as participators. do not have to justify what we do; this workshop is This was Olafur Eliasson’s Weather Project at the part of cultural evolution, part of an attempt to Tate Modern in 2003. define my own belief systems and those of my colleagues. I can only hope that this is a creative I can think of many artists who can do this. Beuys community, a place where people can share skills, and Smithson, Long and De Maria showed the way ideas and energy. I hope that it can be a fulcrum of direct working with site, making a place to be in of change and exchange in which the idea of an ways that art had only pictured before. Kounellis, inclusive culture can be born. We create situations by investigating the materials of trade across and objects that can become catalysts for a form Europe continually in smell, texture and of reflexivity that allows the viewing subject not arrangement, underscores the relation between simply to be a passive consumer of an already man and matter. Simon Starling investigates the tested experience but for the experience of art subtle inversions and interdependencies of energy itself to be testing ground for both the model of and made structures. Following the lead of Lothar art and the model of the human subject. We have Baumgarten, Francis Alys investigates the tribal in making art a specialisation and its exchange as relations of the city’s forest floor dwellers and a matter of high monetary worth lost its central celebrates them. Cornelia Parker re-stages subject – the human being. In the art of the 20th meteoric events asking how humans can century the Duchampian breakthrough was the participate in the telluric and teleological. All of examination of human labour and mass production these artists’ work makes you feel more alive, in the ‘found object’. I would like art to re-focus on more aware, both of the human predicament and the lost subject. of our material and elemental surroundings. There are more – so many more – that are using their But it is also my responsibility to make sure that I lives to make balance between thought, matter can deal with my own impacts, including the and feeling in a way that has never existed before. carbon footprint of the studio and all its activities. I have had the carbon footprint of the studio Last summer I was up in in a wood just assessed, minimised my flights, the studio is west of the Pentland Hills and came upon a robust insulated and we will install solar panels on the hut, its thick walls made of large lumps of the local roof (it is wide and relatively flat). We must recycle dark igneous stone. It is slate roofed and there is a more of our materials and investigate the viability single door. Stepping in, down, and getting used to of a wind turbine. I must also decide whether the low light entering from two unglazed windows carbon offsetting is a conscience salver or a real from each gable end, I recognised that the floor benefit. was uneven and in the half light, that I am actually standing on bedrock. This surface revealed the Having done all of this my greatest responsibility is surface of our earth, unadorned, bruised, cracked, to make work in the most direct way that I can, wedged open by roots, smoothed by ice, pitted by and interpret this time and place in a way that water, laid by sedimentation. This revealing of the makes people more aware of themselves and it. underneath of things, the hidden support that lies beneath trees, homes, buildings was both shocking and engaging. Here was a useless building in which we could encounter our dependency: a brilliant work by Andy Goldsworthy.

So what I am asking for is a re-assessment of what art is and how it works. I am questioning the linear trajectory of art history as part of the Western development of history recognising that all art exists in the sense of a continuous present. We are now in a position to acknowledge that those stages in an evolutionary past that would, in previous times, have been thought of as primitive, are co-existing in this era and are not superseded – and actually the use of the fetish and the totem as reference points for a model of art are enormously useful.

16 britishcouncil.org/longhorizons keeping out the giraffes professor tim jackson ‘THE BIGGEST DANGER OF ALL LIES IN SUBJUGATING ARTISTIC ENDEAVOUR TO REASON. BECAUSE DOING SO RISKS ROBBING ART OF MEANING. AND MEANING IS SOMETHING, I SUSPECT, WE’LL BADLY NEED IN TIMES TO COME.’

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When the moon rises, said Lorca, the sea covers Putting the kids on the bus. Getting to work on the land and the heart feels like an island in the time. Surviving shopfloor politics and email infinite. Children understand this feeling. Look! It’s overload. Foraging for groceries. Throwing the moon, they cry, turning their own moon faces together meals. Escaping for a few hours into up towards you, delight and trepidation finely primetime TV. Watching the late night weather balanced there. Who are these kids, you ask forecast. Collapsing into bed. Making it somehow yourself? Where do they come from? The truth is from one end of the day to another. Locked in they’re strangers. Visiting us from another country. routine. Lost in anxiety. Striving for status. Keeping It’s called the future. Your children are not your out the giraffes. For everyone knows (and children, said Kahlil Gibran. You may house their instinctively fears) the chaos that long-necked bodies but not their souls. For their souls dwell in creatures wreak when they slip through the cracks the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not in our lives. even in your dreams. That isn’t all there is, of course. Our lives routinely A few years ago I was installing some insulation in rise above routine. Relationships matter. Family our home on a Sunday afternoon. My then five matters. Hope for the future matters. And we year old daughter was helping me. We were constantly strive to keep those hopes alive. The pressing thin strips of adhesive-backed foam into daily grind is lifted from obscurity by the colour of the corners of windows and doors to keep out the our dreams. Our aspirations soar on rainbow drafts. At least, that’s what I was doing. She was wings. We continually crave a better life for doing something else. Will this really keep out the ourselves and our children. Occasionally, we giraffes? she said. You can hear the five year old escape into moments of unadulterated pleasure. mind at work. How did they get into our garden? And from the loose fabric of fantasy and the Can this tiny strip of plastic really keep them out? radiant colours of desire we create and maintain a Everyone knows how tall and thin they are. They sense of meaning and purpose in our lives. can probably squeeze through the tiniest cracks. What is the objective of the consumer? asked the And what will happen if they do? Will they tangle anthropologist Mary Douglas in an essay on us up in gangly limbs at breakfast time? poverty written over forty years ago. It is to help My daughter was a millennium baby. She has a create the social world, she said, and find a certificate from the Queen to prove it. Her age will credible place in it. This deeply humanising vision always track the passing years of the twenty-first of consumer lives is also a forgiving one. We would century. How old will you be in 2050? She will be like to condemn materialism as greed and damn 50. It’s her century. The one in which the climate consumerism to hell. But we are locked into its (and many other ecological battles) will be won or social logic by our own symbolic attachment to lost. It’s our planet! What does it look like? How will stuff. Matter matters to us. And not just in we get there? Will there still be giraffes in it? These functional ways. Beyond the immediacy of material are her questions. And mine. sustenance –food, clothing, shelter – consumer goods provide a kind of language through which I’ve thought a lot about those giraffes. At first I we communicate. We tell each other stories mistook them for a childish interpretation of a through material things. And with these stories we weekend chore. But now I see I was mistaken. The create the narratives that sustain our lives. giraffes are there. They really are in the garden. The task is real. Keeping out the giraffes matters. This task – and I am coming to the point now – is a fundamentally artistic endeavour. Technology is There are lots of puzzles in our failure to important to its functionality. Science provides the combat climate change. One of them is the many understanding. Artefacts provide a language. easy things we routinely fail to do about it. Like Goods and services provide what Amartya Sen draft-stripping, for example. Insulating our homes called our capabilities for flourishing. But the task makes unassailable sense. It reduces our energy itself is an act of creation. A creative gesture. bill, saves us money, lowers our carbon footprint It calls on our imagination, our hopes, our vision. and makes our lives more comfortable. And yet It engages our values, our identity, our sense of a they don’t get done, these simple things. Time and shared humanity. Society hangs on the gossamer time again. The technologies work, the economics thread of collective dreams. It always has done. are favourable, the results are demonstrable. But our attention is missing. Our priorities are Living is an artistic endeavour. That’s my point. elsewhere. Climate is bottom of our list. Art doesn’t portray life. Life doesn’t imitate art. Rainforests are a long way from here. Life and art play swing-ball in each other’s back yard. The uniquely human adaptation of artistic Our lives instead are taken up with daily tasks. expression is as strong a force in our shared

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history as were the steam engine, the semi- consolation. Let me finish by speaking briefly conductor and the internet. Infinitely more so. about each. The stories we told, the visions we saw, the I’m fascinated by the proliferation of post- dreams we shared: these were the building blocks apocalyptic visions of the world. From Russell of civilisation, the harbingers of progress, the Hoban’s Riddley Walker to David Mitchell’s Cloud bringers of hope. Atlas; from Saci Lloyd’s Carbon Diaries to Will Self’s In making this claim, I’m not attempting to Book of Dave. And perhaps most poignant of all, privilege artists. Art and celebrity are crudely Cormack McCarthy’s elegiac The Road. Literature intertwined in the modern mind. But celebrity isn’t is replete with memories of the future. And the the essence of art; only its expression in a astonishing thing is that, even for someone like me confused culture, adrift from its moorings in who has worked for over two decades in the shared meaning. Nor am I trying to suggest that science of the future, these stories have an art can rise above our culpability for ecological extraordinary and unexpected power. They change. That would be ridiculous. The lifestyle of a connect me to the future in a way that scenario successful pop star can beggar the carbon models somehow fail to do. footprint of a sub-Saharan nation. Perhaps even more striking are the visions of our The hands of the artist are stained with the inner world. I think for instance of Rembrandt’s pigment of empire. Art mis-catalogued too many allegories, Chopin’s nocturnes, Rodin’s sculpture. abuses and stood silent through too many In Rembrandt’s iconic Return of the Prodigal Son atrocities. But it also suffered these atrocities. the father’s strangely feminine hands rest on the It bore witness to the cruelty that people inflict on shoulders of the returning son, whose torn and one another. It gave voice to the oppressed. Spoke tattered garments somehow radiate a golden light. up for the dispossessed. Understood our joy and In an amazing early sketch of the roadside scene commiserated in our sorrow. Whispered to us in in the parable of the Good Samaritan, he offers an our own language. The heart has reasons, reason extraordinarily intimate portrait of the altruist does not know at all, said Pascal. Art speaks to within. Beneath the noise of human strife, and from the heart. In its purest form, the artistic Rembrandt reminds us, lies a fragile interior space endeavour is a form of creation. One that we’re all worth knowing about, worth protecting. engaged in. These visions are not always comfortable. It’s clear that any attempt to change people’s lives They’re not without conflict and suffering. But here must recognise this. It must speak a language is another of art’s lessons. As an environmentalist, people understand. Science can sketch the nature I’m struck by our tendency to flatten the conflict of the problem. Technology can facilitate the landscape. To want to rush immediately to the solutions. Economics can point out the costs and promised land. But as a playwright, I’m acutely the benefits. Art engages the soul. It speaks to the aware of the rules of . The essence of moon-struck child in us. It whispers to the giraffes. drama is conflict. The arc of the story requires a Art looks like the perfect addition to our protagonist, a call to arms, a quest, a series of instruments of change. trials, a reversal, transformation, a journey home. Resolution through conflict. Art pays homage to And yet I want to resist the call to think of art this the nature of the journey, its sense of struggle. way. Perhaps art can succeed where policy The power (and partiality) of resolution: not as an signally failed. Perhaps we can sketch and instant, a comfortable future, but as a goal hard- compose and sculpt our way towards a lasting earned, easily lost and almost always temporary. climate treaty. Perhaps celebrity artists can lead us There are lessons here for climate activitists. For by example towards sustainability. But this line of all of us. thinking falls into too many traps. That art has traction in politics. That art speaks truth to power. When the moon rises, said Lorca, the bells hang That art is instrumental at all. Some of these things silent and pathways appear impenetrable. The way may be partially true. But the biggest danger of all ahead is gone. Our children turn to us and ask: lies in subjugating artistic endeavour to reason. where now? Which way do we go? What would it Because doing so risks robbing art of meaning. take for us to admit that we don’t know the And meaning is something, I suspect, we’ll badly answer? That we’re lost. That our best attempts to need in times to come. combat climate change have failed. That our economies are bankrupt. That our technologies Instead I believe we need to keep art free to play a are broken. That our politicians have let us down. far more vital role in the emotional fabric of our That restraint lost it’s fight with desire, justice its lives. Three roles in fact: vision, resolution, struggle against inequity. What would it take for us

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to admit that our vision of progress was an illusion. My son asked for a telescope on his eleventh A dream we once had. A story we told our children birthday and I was pleased – another battle won to stop them getting frightened by the moon. against DS this or X-box that. Your children are not your children; but still it gives you hope when their This is where we need the consolation of art. Its desire for understanding overcomes the forces understanding of sorrow, failure, and loss. And its lined up against them. He pointed his precious intimations of transcendence. Nobody eats telescope determinedly at the three quarter moon. oranges under the full moon, said Lorca. One must I’m going there one day, he said, looking up at me eat fruit that is green and cold. You’re not alone in solemnly. His moon-eyes wide and knowing. fear, he says. And in the same breath intimates: the time for oranges will come again. Loss is only part Take me with you, I said. Knowing that he cannot. of the arc of the story. Reversal is only temporary. He just smiled. Art teaches us to look beyond the glitter of triumph and the shadow of disaster. And to detect beneath the echoes of immortality.

Vision, resolution, consolation. These are the tools from which to build a different future. Our ability to live well, to flourish in less materialistic ways, is in essence an artistic endeavour. Sustainability is the art of living well, within the ecological limits of a finite planet. Art is more than an instrument in this process. It’s the nature of it. ‘giraffes’ from landofspike.co.uk ‘giraffes’ from

20 britishcouncil.org/longhorizons seeking inspiration: a scientist turns to the cultural sector professor diana liverman ‘OUR DISMAL PREDICTIONS AND TECHNICAL DISCUSSION OF UNCERTAINTIES SEEM DISTANT AND INTANGIBLE FROM EVERYDAY LIVES; PERHAPS WE HAVE EXHAUSTED PUBLIC WILLINGNESS TO LISTEN TO OUR WARNINGS AND OUR IDEAS FOR ALTERNATIVE LOWER CARBON FUTURES.’

britishcouncil.org/longhorizons 21 seeking inspiration: a scientist turns to the cultural sector professor diana liverman

I have been studying climate change for thirty In the last five years progress has been made in years. During that time the community I belong to raising public awareness of climate change, but has expanded in every dimension: size, scale, popular support for action, and knowledge about depth, scope and academic discipline. We have impacts, responsibilities and solutions is worryingly gathered ourselves into a global community of low in many countries. Even in countries with a scholars and offered our insights to decision well informed and mainly committed media, makers through the United Nations and national enthusiasm for change is rare, patchy and prey to academies of sciences. The Intergovernmental fashion. Furthermore, any modest progress Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an extraordinary towards raising public awareness is undermined by concentration of thousands of minds focusing on a dissent from a small number of climate science common purpose, to gather the best evidence of sceptics, which does not reflect the majority view the physics, impacts, adaptation and mitigation of of scientific experts that climate change is a real climate change. What we have discovered over a threat. We clearly need help communicating the series of four major studies since 1990 is the basic principles of climate change and in certainty and impending risk of a warming earth explaining what it means for societies around the caused by a rapid increase in the concentrations world. of greenhouse gas emissions. Yet despite all our collective brains, commitment, passion and What is the message the climate science creativity, climate science is still failing to prompt community are trying to convey? Simply, the change on anything like the scale required. evidence produced by thousands of scientists Effective communication of the risks and shows overwhelmingly that the earth’s climate is relevance of climate change to people’s lives rapidly changing and that this is almost certainly remains elusive. As scientific evidence has due to human activity. Concentrations of heat- accumulated scientists have found themselves in trapping gases, such as carbon dioxide and the precarious position of being the primary methane, are increasing in the atmosphere communicators to politicians, business, journalists predominantly from the burning of fossil fuels and and citizens. Scientists gather evidence, undertake industrial agricultural practices. These increased analysis and present the results. We are not always concentrations of gases are causing global mean the best communicators of complex ideas, temperatures to rise, changing patterns of especially to lay audiences. The language and precipitation and wind as well as acidifying the methods of science are easily lost in translation oceans. The Earth’s natural processes are and as a result climate science can sometimes intimately – and marvellously – connected: a seem deliberately arcane, beset with jargon and change in one area triggers a reaction somewhere caveats. We often hand over information without else, which in turn triggers another, and another. checking to see if it is what decision makers need Although the world came together in 1992 to or presented in a form accessible to the intended create the UN Framework Convention on Climate audience. Change (UNFCCC), the efforts so far to reduce Furthermore our dismal predictions and technical greenhouse gases have been completely discussion of uncertainties seem distant and inadequate, with emissions increasing by 2-3% a intangible from everyday lives; perhaps we have year. Hopes of keeping atmospheric exhausted public willingness to listen to our concentrations of gases below 450 parts per warnings and our ideas for alternative lower million (ppm) – a level that might keep warming carbon futures. Within science there has around 2°C – are receding as we have already sometimes been a tendency for natural scientists reached a level equivalent to about 430ppm. to see social scientists as their public relations Last September I helped organise a conference at consultants to help the public better understand Oxford University to discuss what a world might what scientists are telling them. But social science look like if we do not control emissions and by the can be just as academic in its efforts to explain end of the conference I was feeling very how human actions are changing the natural pessimistic. We heard that within a lifetime the environment, how human vulnerabilities world may be 4°C warmer with glaciers and arctic exacerbate environmental impacts, and how sea ice significantly receding, and more regions of human choices can move us towards sustainability. the world suffering searing heat waves, severe droughts, and intense, frequent storms with devastating impacts for people and ecosystems.

22 britishcouncil.org/longhorizons seeking inspiration: a scientist turns to the cultural sector professor diana liverman

Climate scientists Steve Schneider and John This is where arts and culture Schellnhuber1 - my friends and my role models for come into their own. The arts have much to offer communicating climate science - helped develop in catalysing understanding, dialogue and vision the ‘burning embers’ diagram to try and convey for a world that will live within its ecological limits. the serious risks of climate change2. John has also Art has global reach and can open conversations captured imagination through his research on between generations, nations, and communities. ‘tipping points’ – places where warming may flip Art can tell stories and give us a language through the earth system into rapid and irreversible which to express our emotional experiences. In an changes such as the collapse of ice sheets or the era when travel, media and the internet connect loss of the Amazon forest. As Steve wrote recently, us internationally, the arts can rapidly communicate their messages to global audiences …many unique or rare systems would probably be in ways that erase national boundaries and create lost, including Arctic sea ice, mountain-top communities of common interest. Artistic glaciers, most threatened and endangered endeavours can provoke us to question our species, coral-reef communities, and many high- humanity, create connections with others and with latitude and high-altitude indigenous human the natural world, and offer us a vision for cultures. People would be vulnerable in other alternative futures. The arts spring from creativity ways too: Asian mega-delta cities would face and we need that human quality not just to rising sea levels and rapidly intensifying tropical produce art but also to develop the future visions cyclones, creating hundreds of millions of for engineers, designers, businesses, technologists refugees; valuable infrastructure such as the and scientists alike. London or New York underground systems could be damaged or lost; the elderly would be at risk In my own life I have often turned to literature and from unprecedented heat waves; and children, music for solace and hope, as well as to better who are especially vulnerable to malnutrition in understand other cultures and to escape from the poor areas, would face food shortages.3 daily grind of teaching and research. But over the last few years I have realised that arts and culture Aside from communicating the reality of climate can be partners in my climate change work and change impacts and therefore urgency to act, the can play an important role in galvanising a serious scientific community wants to communicate that response to the threat of climate change. we have the ingenuity and ability to reverse the Until recently I was the Director of the pathway that humanity is currently on. We are by Environmental Change Institute (ECI) at Oxford no means consigned to impending doom. There University. During my time there we formally are many technological, political and social partnered with UK arts organisations Cape choices available to us from the simple action of Farewell, Tipping Point, Julie’s Bicycle and Red insulating our homes to reconfiguring our power Redemption as well as supporting a number of generation. However, for us to create a future in artistic projects. Each organisation’s contribution balance with the world around us we must agree to the climate change agenda is different, but in shared values and responsibilities as well as the complementary ways they are catalysing a political and economic framework and coherent approach by the creative community – mechanisms for change to happen. and their audiences – in the climate challenge. I wonder how many readers have acted on this I see several important functions of this knowledge and shifted their lives, necessitating connection which is reflected in the organisations sometimes awkward, limiting and lonely lifestyle and people I have had the privilege to work with. decisions. Why haven’t I done more myself to These are: open dialogue between scientists and reduce my travel or invest in making my house artists; establishing exemplary practice and more sustainable? The broad base of support leadership; and creativity and creative works. which translates into lifestyle change fails to Both Tipping Point and Cape Farewell focus on the materialise. It needs to be a good choice, a dialogue and the relationships between art and happier offer. And for this we need good science: Cape Farewell organises inspirational governance and substantial finance, sure, but we encounters with effects of climate also need new ideas, shared values and visionary change – field trips to the Arctic and the Amazon leadership. for small groups of artists to join scientists

1 Steve Schneider has been involved in the Rothbury , a festival creating interaction between scientists, musicians and audiences on issues of sustainability. John Schellnhuber helped develop Tipping Point workshops and conferences between scientists and artists in the UK and . In addition, the Potsdam Institute is the research partner of the Green Music Initiative, Thema1, in Germany. 2 pik-potsdam.de 3 Steve Schneider, Nature 30 April 2009, 458:1104-5

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monitoring the impacts of climate change in some exciting ways that produce some shifts in art and of the world’s most vulnerable ecosystems. in practice. Tipping Point runs specialised workshops in which Traces of the encounters between climate science the latest science is explained and explored by and arts and culture were evident at the recent artists and arts organisations. ECI has been climate summit in Copenhagen especially in the involved with Tipping Point since its inception and side events around the city that included or is excited to see this dialogue between scientists presented artists and their work and in the and artists being extended internationally. It is announcements of the UK music industry to through these opportunities for interactions that international leaders about their commitments to ideas for joint collaboration can emerge. reduce emissions. Although Copenhagen produced Both of these experiential responses have moved a weaker agreement than many had hoped for I minds and opened hearts – I have seen it with my remain optimistic that the world can rise to the own eyes and felt it change my own perceptions. challenge of creating a safe climate. The negotiations will continue over coming months. Of course, we must be careful not to cast artistic The consequences of inaction do not bear thinking communities only as skilled communicators or about: so we must remain hopeful and energetic. marketers of climate change science and solutions. We also need to ask them to share their Nick Stern, a distinguished economist who experience of business practices that can help convinced many that acting now on climate better manage the planet. Our collaboration with change will be much less costly than dealing with Julie’s Bicycle is an illustration of how the cultural the damages later, has also remained positive, sector can demonstrate leadership by doing, not writing that international agreement talking. We have been able to help the music …will allow us to avoid the profound risks of industry understand how the issue of climate climate change, to overcome poverty worldwide change directly relates to their business activities. and to usher in an exciting new era of prosperity Although the carbon footprint of the music based on sustainable low-carbon growth. Through industry is low compared to many other economic innovation and investment in new greener and sectors, it has an impact potentially far beyond its more energy efficient technologies in the next immediate operations because of the power of its two or three decades, we can create the most artists to influence their audiences, especially dynamic period of growth in economic history. young people. And Julie’s Bicycle is extending its And what is more, a low-carbon world will also be work beyond music and beyond the UK – there is quieter, cleaner, more energy-secure and more no shortage of appetite from creative people to biologically diverse. Let us not allow mistrust, get on and do something, of that I am certain. pessimism and lack of ambition to prevent us Our work with arts and culture also extends to from achieving these aims. Instead let us have video gaming: Red Redemption is creating games real vision and leadership in both developing and that connect players with climate change issues. developed countries which seize the Scientists provide the data, models and decision opportunities… for us, our children and future rules for simulating climate change impacts and generations. negotiations and the company develops an The commitment of governments, businesses engaging interface that invites players to destroy and individuals is growing daily. The vulnerable or save the planet – hopefully learning more about island country of the Maldives is going carbon climate change and its solutions in the process. neutral, Mexico and other developing countries An early version of the game – Climate Challenge – are limiting their growth in emissions, Wal-Mart and was played by thousands of people on the BBC Tesco say they will reduce emissions in their website4. supply chains, the finance community is seeking It is interesting to note that all the contributors to climate friendly investments and thousands of this collection of essays have been inspired by one people in the UK have promised to cut their or more of these organisations but have moved emissions by 10% in 2010. Although we are still forward in many different directions. Which is some considerable way from a legally binding precisely the point. None of these organisations international agreement to combat climate are overly prescriptive; they are all introducing change, governments are developing regulations information about the realities of climate change and incentives to drive forward a low carbon and its consequences to the creative community society. Businesses, especially large businesses, and hoping that this very creativity will respond in are increasingly pre-emptive of regulation and are

4 http://makesyouthink.net/games/climate-challenge/

24 britishcouncil.org/longhorizons seeking inspiration: a scientist turns to the cultural sector professor diana liverman

making concerted efforts to cut emissions. And Scientists can listen to our colleagues in the arts citizen movements, such as Transition Towns in the to better understand their audiences, know what is UK that put sustainability at the core of useful information and research, and to make sure communities, are gaining momentum. communication is not one way. We must be careful not to cast the arts and cultural sectors only as Stern has noted climate change is the ultimate skilled communicators and marketers of climate collective action problem because the solutions change science and solutions, but also to share require many to act. So given the challenges of their insights into human emotions, cultures, communicating the issues, the search for creative technologies and business practices that can help solutions, and the need to broaden the scope of better manage the planet. And getting out a business responses to climate change there are message on climate change is not simply down to powerful reasons to engage the arts and the the artists or art. We all need the active support of cultural sector. We need arts and culture more international cultural structures and institutions than ever to be a hugely contributing voice: that support the arts, foster cultural relations and commenting on, shaping, consolidating and have global reach. magnifying the positive responses of governments, business and citizens. Building the trust to collaborate takes time, as well as financial support for what may sometimes From my perspective as a scientist the arts seem appear to be risky scientific, creative or business able to provoke and inspire reactions, values and initiatives, but the immediacy with which deep practices that could move global society to a more action is needed means that we do not have time sustainable future. The arts have the potential to to lose. lead a response to climate change through both creativity and exemplary practice. The arts bring together those individuals who live for the practice of creativity, inspiration and ideas – and who often challenge the status quo through critique and alternative visions. The arts have begun their own efforts to catalyse the cultural shift of consciousness that will put sustainability at the heart of society. Now the early arts adopters need to scale up internationally, and perhaps then their audiences will begin to perceive what scientists have failed to express.

britishcouncil.org/longhorizons 25 contributors

antony gormley kt tunstall Over the last 25 years Antony Gormley has revitalised the A singer- and guitarist born in Scotland, KT burst into human image in sculpture through a radical investigation of the public eye with a live solo performance of her song “Black the body as a place of memory and transformation, using Horse and the Cherry Tree” on Later...with . Her his own body as subject, tool and material. Since 1990 debut album was released in late 2004 and reached Number 3 in Gormley has expanded his concern with the human the Album charts. The album also scooped a nomination for the condition to explore the collective body and the Mercury Music Prize in 2005, and 2006 she received three BRIT relationship between self and other in large-scale nominations, successfully winning the award for Best British installations. He has created some of the most ambitious Female Solo Artist. KT won the coveted Ivor Novello Award for and iconic works of contemporary British sculpture, Best Song, for “”, and a Q Award for Track of the including Field, Angel of the North at , Quantum Year for “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree”. Cloud on the Thames in London, and Another Place, now KT’s home has undergone an eco-transformation – her new studio permanently sited on Crosby Beach near Liverpool. and loft extension uses reclaimed wood, sheep’s wool wall His work has been exhibited extensively at major insulation, spray taps and solar panels. KT was invited to journey international galleries and museums including the Tate, to the arctic with Cape Farewell in September 2008, a UK based Hayward, Whitechapel and in the UK; arts organisation bringing artists, scientists and communicators the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the together to instigate a cultural response to climate change. She is County Museum of Art; the Louisiana Museum in leading ‘GreenmyBand’ which will offer advice and support to Humlebaek and the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin. artists acting on climate change working with Julie’s Bicycle. Antony Gormley was born in London in 1950. professor diana liverman british council Professor Diana Liverman (PhD UCLA, MA Toronto, BA London) The British Council is the 's organisation for Diana Liverman holds appointments at Oxford University and the international cultural relations and educational University of Arizona. At Oxford she is visiting Professor of opportunities. While fostering inter-cultural understanding, Environmental Policy and Development and affiliated with the positive social change and supporting the UK’s creative Environmental Change Institute (ECI), the School of Geography and knowledge economy, the British Council has also made and Environment and Linacre College. She is the former director climate change a strategic priority; assisting the UK of ECI. At the University of Arizona she is Professor of Geography Government’s international objectives to lead a faster and Development and Co-director of a new university-wide transition to sustainable, low carbon economies. Institute of the Environment. Her leadership roles include co- jay griffiths chairing the U.S. National Academies Panel on Informing America’s Jay Griffiths is the author of Pip Pip: A Sideways Look at Climate Choices, chairing the scientific advisory committee of the Time which won her the Barnes & Noble Discover award for International Global Environmental Change and Food Security the best new non-fiction writer published in the USA. Her project and editing the Annual Review of Environment and second book, Wild: An Elemental Journey was shortlisted Resources. for both the Orwell prize and for the World Book Day award. Her main research interests include climate impacts, vulnerability It was the winner of the inaugural 2007 Orion Book Award and adaptation, and climate policy especially the role of business, in the USA. She has recently completed a short novel to be NGOs and the developing world in both mitigation and adaptation. published in 2010, and written articles and columns for She also works on the political economy and political ecology of publications including , the London Review of environmental management in the Americas, especially in Mexico. Books and The Idler. She has broadcast on Radio 4 and the She has made substantial contributions to our understanding of World Service. She lives in Wales. vulnerability to climate change and to developing larger research julie’s bicycle agendas on the social sciences of global change. Diana sits on the julie’s bicycle is a not for profit company committed to boards of Cape Farewell, Julie’s Bicycle and Tipping Point. tackling climate change in the creative industries. The professor tim jackson organisation is a broad coalition of industry, science and Tim Jackson is Professor of Sustainable Development at the energy experts who have come together to find the most University of and Director of the Research group on effective ways of reducing carbon emissions and promoting Lifestyles, Values and Environment (RESOLVE). Funded by the environmental sustainability. Julie’s Bicycle researches Economic and Social Research Council, RESOLVE explores the priority areas which have a significant impact, including links between lifestyles, societal values and the environment. In recording, touring, venues and events. The team provide particular, RESOLVE aims to provide evidence-based advice to advice and support, audits and tools to help companies policy-makers in the UK and elsewhere who are seeking to develop more climate responsible businesses. understand and to influence people’s energy-related behaviours and practices. Since 2004 Tim has been Economics Commissioner on the UK Sustainable Development Commission and is the author of their report, now updated and expanded in the book Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet (Earthscan 2009). In addition to his academic work he is an award-winning playwright 26 britishcouncil.org/longhorizons with numerous radio-writing credits for the BBC. appendices i) overview of UK cultural policy and climate change 29 ii) resources and tools 37 iii) glossary 39

britishcouncil.org/longhorizons 27 sir nick serota director of tate ‘WE SHOULD ALL NOTE OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO HAND OVER OUR INSTITUTIONS IN A SUSTAINABLE SHAPE, WHETHER THAT IS ABOUT ENERGY CONSUMPTION OR THE WAY OUR INSTITUTIONS ARE RUN; AND UNLESS WE RECOGNISE THAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS A MAJOR INTEREST FOR OUR PUBLIC, ESPECIALLY YOUNG PEOPLE, WE WILL FORFEIT OUR RESPECT IN RELATION TO THAT PUBLIC.’

State of the Arts conference, London, January 2010

28 britishcouncil.org/longhorizons appendix i) overview of UK cultural policy and climate change

This overview has focused on UK Climate change mitigation and limited, and that many of the DCMS cultural bodies to provide a context for adaptation require a collective shift in bodies were unable to provide British Council policy thinking and to consciousness and behaviour. The adequate information (within the look at one country in depth. The UK is cultural sector is a primary means by research timeframe) to assess carbon the first country to adopt a Climate which to reflect, comment on and impacts. A conference on climate Change Act and legally binding carbon encourage this shift. change was also organised in early budgets; this survey reveals how such 2008 to raise awareness and build national policy is beginning to work its consensus among ‘DCMS family’ way through to the sector-specific National (UK) organisations. level. Full Review of the Literature Consisting Department for Culture, of 10 Matrices on the Effect of Climate The starting point is the government Media & Sport (DCMS) Change on Cultural and Sporting Assets. Department for Culture, Media and (March 08), DCMS Group Carbon Sport (DCMS). The DCMS will be DCMS is the central government Footprint Assessment (April 08), DCMS responsible for achieving emissions department responsible for arts, Family Climate Change Conference reductions within their sectors, in line culture, sport, museums, galleries, Report (Jan 08) with targets set out in the five yearly libraries, creative industries, film, the carbon budgets. A carbon reduction historic environment, Royal Parks and As a result of these initiatives, the plan is expected in Spring 2010 and the 2012 Olympic Games & Paralympic DCMS Sustainable Development Forum DCMS have produced a sustainable Games. It oversees 55 public bodies, and Museums and Galleries Energy development action plan (published in including 46 non-departmental public Forum were established, with 2008). More than 60 bodies receive bodies (NDPBs) responsible for representatives of sponsored bodies funding from the DCMS. We highlight delivering its aims and objectives. and institutions, to share information those that are responsible for providing DCMS Sustainable Development Action and best practice. A ‘Pathways to funding, setting policy or guidance. Plan 2008-11 sets out the department’s Sustainability’ section hosts Therefore we do not discuss in any response to climate change and other information links on the DCMS website, detail the practices undertaken by arts aspects of environmental, social and including a carbon management and cultural institutions that are directly economic sustainability. guidance tool. sponsored as non-departmental public http://bit.ly/400Vap bodies (NDPBs). Internally, DCMS is taking steps to reduce the carbon impact of its NDPBs are responsible for developing Climate change policy and practice operations. Like all government their own action plans and targets, and within the cultural sector focuses departments, it must meet targets set conducting their own reporting – largely on process (DCMS, UK Film out in Sustainable Operations on the including with regard to energy and Council (UKFC)), the built environment Government Estate (SOGE), and utilities. As outlined below, the extent (Arts Council (ACE), participate in the Carbon Reduction to which different bodies are achieving Commission for Architecture and the Commitment (CRC). DCMS property is these aims is variable. Technically, Built Environment (CABE), English benchmarked and must meet Energy many sponsored bodies (with larger Heritage, Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF)), Performance Certificate (EPC) and buildings, estates, energy use) should procurement (CABE) and artistic Display Energy Certificate (DEC) also meet the same government programming (UKFC, ACE, Design standards. Management information targets as DCMS under SOGE, EPD, DEC Council). and data systems have been etc. It is not clear to what extent all are established in order to comply with ISO currently engaged. Most initiatives are still voluntary, or ‘for 14001 and the Standard guidance’ rather than mandatory. The Most of these measures relate primarily (formerly the Energy Efficiency DCMS and the cultural bodies it funds to internal processes and operations of Accreditation Scheme). Environmental directly are now required to internally NDPBs and institutions. champions have been appointed to reduce emissions but this requirement raise staff awareness. Climate Change does not feature is not yet being passed on more DCMS Sustainable Development Action prominently in the major DCMS policy broadly. Plan 2008-11 (Aug ‘08) documents which set out the The sector’s special capacity to engage Government’s strategic aims and Research was commissioned in and influence the public is also objectives for the cultural sector and 2007/08 to inform the Action Plan, acknowledged. CABE argues that arts creative industries in the UK. For including a review of existing literature buildings should be required to go instance, the McMaster Review of arts on the effect of climate change on beyond minimum standards as they are policy and funding was published in cultural and sporting assets, and a in a position to showcase their actions. 2008 after an extensive consultation, carbon footprint assessment of DCMS More than many other economic and warmly welcomed by many in the and 18 of its sponsored bodies and sectors, the steps taken in the cultural cultural sector, but it makes no mention cultural institutions. These indicated and creative industries are on display. of climate change. Similarly, climate that the evidence base was relatively

britishcouncil.org/longhorizons 29 change is barely mentioned in either “mainstreaming the climate change individual projects focused on climate, the Creative Britain report of 2008 or in message.” The campaign launched at e.g. Tipping Point, Cape Farewell, Julie’s 2009’s Digital Britain report. Emissions the 2009. Bicycle and Arcola Theatre. It provides associated with digital information are actoncopenhagen.decc.gov.uk/ the online resource Arts Energy, a self- significant. assessment efficiency toolkit for arts Supporting Excellence in the Arts organisations. The RSA Arts & Ecology Arts Council England (ACE) (2008), Creative Britain: New Talents for centre is a partnership with Arts Council the New Economy (2008), Digital Britain: ACE is the national development England. Final Report (2009) agency for the arts in England. It is a artsenergy.org.uk government sponsored non- rsaartsandecology.org.uk DCMS has published an action plan for departmental public body with a sustainable tourism which includes a Internally ACE is improving its energy national headquarters and nine regional short section outlining tourism’s impact management procedures and submitted offices. It supports visual arts, music, on climate change. This encourages the a carbon footprint measurement of theatre, dance, literature, carnival and tourism sector to engage more fully 1400 tonnes (t) of Carbon Dioxide digital art, and is responsible for with sustainability agendas, and (CO ), equivalent to 2.18t per full-time distributing National Lottery funded 2 provides information on a range of equivalent for the OGC property grants to artists and organisations. relevant resources and initiatives, such benchmarking exercise 2008/2009. as the Adapting to Climate Change In January 2010 ACE launched its ACE measures and reduces energy, Programme (ACC) and UK Climate consultation Achieving Great Art for consumables, water, waste, travel and Impacts Programme. The action plan Everyone which builds on previous work staff engagement in all its offices, advocates voluntary rather than to define how it will work with artists utilising video conferencing to reduce mandatory action, except where and arts organisations to create travel. Offices over 1000 m2 have tourism is already governed by existing positive change for the arts over the Display Energy Certificates (DECs). In laws (e.g. Climate Change Act). next ten years. The consultation’s vision 2009 Arts Council England’s Yorkshire Sustainable Tourism in England: A for the future includes an arts sector office was awarded two Green Business framework for action - Meeting the key that is sustainable, resilient and Awards. ACE has signed up to the 10:10 challenges (2009), http://bit.ly/MjK0l innovative. campaign. artscouncil.org.uk/consultation OGC Property Benchmarking Service 2008/2009 Performance Statement Department of Energy and Climate This will be a period for which, it Prepared by IPD Change (DECC) acknowledges, climate change will be central to all our thinking. “Artists and ACE Trustees and Management also DECC is the central government organisations are playing an inspiring address ‘Responsibility Towards the department responsible for energy and role as society prepares to meet the Environment and Sustainable climate change mitigation policy. challenge of a low-carbon economy – Development’ in the Annual Review DECC have recently undertaken an now viewed by many as the single 2009. investigation of climate change and the biggest issue humankind faces. ‘Best practice in the management of cultural and creative sector. Undertaken However, the need to adapt capital energy use’ has been introduced as a by artist Keith Khan it investigates the infrastructure and to evolve new criteria in grant assessments for role the arts can play in communicating approaches to touring and international regularly funded organisations (RFOs). climate change to the public. work are challenges that are only beginning to be addressed.” With Commission for Architecture and The report will identify where DECC Consultation preface, Dame Liz Forgan the Built Environment, (CABE), ACE has should work more closely with the artscouncil.org.uk/consultation/preface published a practical guide to cultural and creative industries to help developing capital projects for the its climate change objectives, in In parallel with the launch of its cultural sector that are sustainable and particular where DECC can leverage consultation, Arts Council England has energy efficient in every respect (see leadership, partnerships, expertise, and recognised the significance of below). funds to support the sector’s response environmental sustainability for itself Guidance for Arts Council England lead to climate change. and the arts in England. ACE is officers on funding agreement 2009/10 Climate Change and the Cultural and committed to working with others to –2010/11 Creative Sector, internal publication develop sustainable practice within the only, January 2010 arts; the sustainable operation of its On an individual, project-by-project own buildings and processes; basis, ACE regional offices have DECC’s Act on Copenhagen campaign in supporting and championing the arts’ supported a range of environmentally- the lead-up to COP15 included a role in communicating and exploring themed art works, and continue to do ‘culture’ strand, acknowledging the role the issue so. the arts, culture and creative industries can play in reaching out to society and ACE has funded arts organisations and

30 britishcouncil.org/longhorizons British Council sustainable design’ in all of its work, order to showcase best practice. including its Design Review function Building Excellence in the Arts (2009) The British Council is the United (e.g. assessing plans for 2012 Olympic http://bit.ly/2af6Dr Kingdom's organisation for international venues). Much of its other work around cultural relations and educational energy and sustainability centres on opportunities. While fostering inter- Design Council research, disseminating best practice cultural understanding, positive social and information resources. The Design Council is the national change and supporting the UK’s Sustainability is also central to several strategic body for design in the UK. creative and knowledge economy, the main programme strands, including Joint responsibility of Department for British Council has also made climate sustainable cities, public spaces, better Business Information and Skills (BIS) change a strategic priority; assisting public buildings, schools, home-building and DCMS. the UK Government’s international and eco-towns. objectives to lead a faster transition to Although climate change is mentioned sustainable, low carbon economies. Internally, CABE has a particularly in the foreword of the current Design advanced environmental strategy. Council delivery plan, it is not To support this priority the British Rigorous and detailed sustainability referenced as a major element of the Council is developing a new audits (carbon footprint and wider organisation’s five main objectives. programme, Arts, Climate Change and ecological impacts) carried out in 2006 However, Design Council believes that Sustainability, which aims to harness and 2008 also took into account its ‘good design is sustainable design’, and and extend the interest in influence on stakeholders, for example this should have a role in broader environmental sustainability shown by through procurement. CABE aims to be concerns, such as the role of design in the UK arts communities and promote carbon neutral by 2012 through a meeting the UK’s social and economic best practice internationally. Support combination of emissions reductions challenges. for an international series of Tipping and compensation via funds for UK- Good Design Plan: National design Point conferences for artists and based, building and energy-focused strategy and Design Council delivery scientists, and Julie’s Bicycle research projects. plan 2008-11 into the carbon impacts of UK theatre cabe.org.uk/corporate/sustainability- touring are early examples of this. The plan Some sustainable design resources and programme will include support for case studies are provided on the artistic work that inspires and It published a briefing on Sustainable Design Council website, and it has demystifies the climate change debate, Design, Climate Change and the Built funded sustainable design projects in dissemination of industry best practice Environment in 2007 – stating that the the past (for example this was an and the development of international “aim is to frame everything we do aspect of the ‘Designs of The Time’ strategy to support this work in within the context of sustainable design programme) collaboration with other funding and climate change.” The briefing set 8 designcouncil.org.uk dott07.com agencies. objectives designed to promote this britishcouncil.org/climatechange.htm stance for 2007-2009, and called on government to extend legislation, build English Heritage At the operational level the British more stringent sustainability criteria Council have developed and maintain a English Heritage is the UK into public contracts, demand better formal certified environmental government’s statutory adviser on the monitoring data, local authority management system for its three historic environment (in England). planning and joint working with the largest UK premises. The principles of private sector. CABE also co-organised Along with CABE, English Heritage is environmental management and the the first Climate Change Festival in substantially addressing climate objectives of the British Council will be 2008. change. applied to all other UK premises and a Sustainable Design, Climate Change and framework for environmental Climate Change and the Historic the Built Environment (2007). management (Environmental Environment (2008) outlines the http://bit.ly/3lpV0P climatechange- Framework Tool) has been rolled out to potential risks to the historic festival.org.uk/ their global overseas estate. environment (e.g. from coastal CABE produced Building Excellence in flooding), and advocates strong action. the Arts with ACE, a guide to It aims to use its own sites to trial Commission for Architecture and the developing sustainable cultural mitigation technologies and strategies Built Environment (CABE) buildings. The guide stresses the need and demonstrate these to the public CABE is the UK government’s adviser for sustainability to be integral to every (for example alternative energy). on architecture, urban design and aspect of building design, materials, English Heritage advises on optimising public space. life-long energy requirements, usage, efficiency of old buildings without management etc. It argues that arts compromising historic significance. Sustainability is one of CABE’s nine buildings should meet higher standards Climate Change & The Historic core areas of work. It aims to ‘embed than minimum building regulations in Environment (2008) http://bit.ly/1z0LRJ

britishcouncil.org/longhorizons 31 In addition the English Heritage website including environmental monitoring and MLA co-funds an online resource provides more detailed research and control. All new build projects must ‘Designing Libraries’, which includes guidance on specific issues, such as exceed minimum statutory Building links (mostly external) to information micro-generation and solar thermal Regulations for energy efficiency; about energy efficiency and energy. refurbishment projects should aim to sustainable design. http://bit.ly/12F7vE meet at least minimum Building designinglibraries.org.uk Regulations for energy efficiency, English Heritage delivers the Historic Although MLA does not provide strong unless these pose an overriding threat Environment Local Management (HELM) strategic leadership on the subject, to the building’s cultural significance. programme, providing advice on the many individual museums, galleries and Planning Greener Heritage Projects management of local historic libraries are responding to the climate (2009)http://bit.ly/9sAZU environments by local authorities and change and energy efficiency agendas. others, including on energy efficiency HLF will consider funding up-front costs These include many of the major and environmental sustainability. It for more sustainable options (e.g. national institutions, which are funded provides information and advice on energy) even if there are cheaper directly by DCMS, such as the Science energy efficiency in older homes and alternatives. Museum, National Portrait Gallery, historic buildings through a web Imperial War Museum, V&A and Tate. resource with energy provider E-On. The South Kensington Low Carbon Museums Associations helm.org.uk Futures initiative aims to reduce carbon An independent membership emissions by 10% between 2005 and English Heritage works closely with the association for sector professionals, 2009 across the 35 hectare South Heritage Lottery Fund (see below) and institutions and corporates working in Kensington cultural and museum site National Trust on climate change and UK museums, galleries and heritage. including the Natural History Museum, environmental sustainability. Sustainability and museums, Report on Science Museum, V&A and Imperial climatechangeandyourhome.org.uk consultation (2009) http://bit.ly/5KQTE3 College as well as the Royal Albert Hall.

In summer 2008 the Museums Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) Association ran a consultation about National Museum Directors’ The Heritage Lottery Fund distributes sustainability and museums. The Conference National Lottery funded grants to local, consultation focused on sustainability The NMDC represents the leaders of regional and national heritage projects in its broadest economic, social and the UK’s national collections and major in the UK, including those relating to environmental sense. Discussions with regional museums. These comprise the historic buildings and monuments. over 600 individuals led to the national museums in England, Scotland, development of 11 key sustainability Sustainable development is one of Wales and Northern , four principles for museums, a sustainability fifteen ‘policy directions’ set for the leading regional museums, the British checklist from which museums can lottery distributor by government. Library, National Library of Scotland, build an action plan, and the Climate change is identified as one of and the National Archives. While its development of ongoing resources. the key challenges for the heritage members are funded by government, sector, and environmental impact and The Museums Association has also the NMDC is an independent, use of resources have recently been developed an internal action plan, nongovernmental organisation. strengthened as assessment criteria in formed a staff group to champion In responding to climate change, funding applications. sustainability, and senior managers are NMDC has focused on the unique Business Plan 2009, Annual Report looking in detail at energy use, print, challenge museums face addressing 2008-09 paper and waste. sustainability while maintaining optimal Planning Greener Heritage Projects environmental conditions for outlines a range of factors that capital Museums, Libraries and Archives collections. One of the main obstacles projects funded by HLF should address Council (MLA) is the requirement to adhere to long-term, including energy efficiency, international standards, which do not The MLA is the UK government’s renewable energy, water, building reflect the realities of different climatic strategic body for museums, galleries, materials, construction waste, soil, conditions or needs of different libraries and archives. timber, biodiversity and visitor objects. To achieve real change, this Corporate Plan 2008-11 transport. There are no minimum issue calls for not just national, but required standards for buildings in Sustainability is central to much of the international cooperation. To address conservation areas but grant applicants MLA’s work with a strong emphasis on this the NMDC convened a group of must address these issues in detail, social and economic sustainability. Its conservators from across its Larger capital projects must prepare strategic priorities are ‘Learning & membership to identify issues and management and maintenance plans, Skills’, ‘Communities’ and ‘Excellence’. areas for concern and to set out how an international group of conservators

32 britishcouncil.org/longhorizons might liaise. NMDC has developed a set Sport England materials, transport, venue operations, of interim guiding principles for catering, legacy planning etc. and Sport England distributes government rethinking policy and practice which success will be measured by an and National Lottery funding to support members have adopted, signaling a independent Commission for a participation in sport in local move towards a less energy intensive Sustainable London 2012 – the first communities. approach to collections care. The need body of its kind in the history of the for further research was also identified, Sport England states that it ‘supports Games. and priorities set out at a series of environmental objectives and have Towards One Planet: London 2012 discussions conducted with the strengthened the environmental advice Sustainability Plan (2007) National Archives, with funding from the in our published design guidance’. The Cultural Olympiad is a programme Arts and Humanities Research Council. Sport England Annual Review 2008-09 of cultural performances, activities and A report is expected in 2010 from the events throughout the UK to celebrate National Archives. One of Sport England’s roles is to the Olympics, taking place between http://tinyurl.com/ygfmof4 provide advice to local authorities and others on the development of new 2008 and 2012. All projects must sports facilities and infrastructure. embrace the Cultural Olympiad values, RSA (The Royal Society for the Environmental sustainability is one of and adopt three of its six themes, one Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture the principles informing how Sport of which is to ‘raise environmental and Commerce) England engages with the spatial sustainability, health & well-being issues planning system. It works with partners through culture and sport’. The RSA develops and promotes new and advises them on how to build http://bit.ly/91rqBI ways of thinking about human fulfilment environmental sustainability goals and social progress through research, Some projects selected for ‘Artists (among other aims) into regional spatial projects and providing platforms for Taking the Lead’ (part of the 2012 strategies. leading experts to share new ideas on Cultural Olympiad) reflect climate Spatial Planning for Sport and Active contemporary issues. change and environmental issues, Recreation (2005) notably nowhereisland by Alex Hartley The RSA established the RSA Arts & Sport England provides design advice and Flow by The Owl Project/Ed Carter. Ecology Centre in 2005 to catalyse, to those planning new sports facilities, artiststakingthelead.org.uk/ publicise, challenge and support artists including guidance on environmentally who are responding to the sustainable buildings, taking into unprecedented environmental The Theatres Trust account issues such as design, challenges of our era. materials, energy, heating, management The National Advisory Body for artsandecology.org.uk and transport. Theatres in the UK, the Theatres Trust Between 2006 and 2008 the RSA Environmental Sustainability: Promoting works to protect theatre buildings by developed Carbon Limited. The project Sustainable Design for Sport (2007) promoting their importance and explored the role personal carbon http://bit.ly/1JhDJq providing advice on planning, building, trading could play in stimulating the restoration, development and use for behaviour change necessary to reduce the benefit of the nation. 2012 London Olympic and the UK’s carbon consumption. It has Paralympic Games The Theatres Trust is responsible for since been handed over to the Local ensuring the theatres sector’s Government Information Unit (LGIU). The Government Olympic Executive compliance with EU legislation on the A persuasive climate: Personal trading (GOE) is part of the DCMS and exists to Energy Performance of Buildings and changing lifestyles (2008) provide oversight and assurance of the (Display Energy Certificates and Energy http://bit.ly/8xdh9O entire Olympic and Paralympic Performance Certificates). Programme. A commitment to The RSA Arts & Ecology Centre is sustainability was a key element of A conference on Building Sustainable working with Peterborough’s Citizens of London’s Olympic bid, inspired by the Theatres in 2008 was followed by the Future project, where a particularly WWF/BioRegional concept of ‘One participation in the Green Theatres forward-thinking administration, Planet Living’. The London 2012 programme supported by the Mayor of working with Arts Council East, is Sustainability Plan sets out the London. With funding from the setting itself the goal of transforming organisers’ objectives across a number European Regional Development Fund itself into a flagship of sustainability. of cross-cutting themes, including (ERDF) via the London Development The RSA Arts & Ecology Centre will climate change, waste and biodiversity, Agency (LDA), the Theatres Trust has facilitate an understanding of how art as well as inclusion and healthy living. also developed ECOVENUE, a theatre- can help people re-envision a place, These are applied to every aspect of specific, environmental business and transform people’s fundamental the Games – design and build of the support project for 48 theatre and relationships within it. Olympic park, procurement and performing arts venues across London.

britishcouncil.org/longhorizons 33 It aims to achieve quantifiable environmental sustainability, with Visual Arts and Galleries Association improvements in the environmental targets; identifying best practice and (VAGA) performance of London’s theatres. knowledge base – e.g. green filming VAGA is a leading independent body Theatres will be provided with advice to guides; providing training – e.g. to all and UK-wide professional network develop Environmental Policies and UKFC-funded productions; developing a promoting the visual arts and achieve Display Energy Certificates BSI standard for film. representing the interests of (DECs). Savings made will help to UK Film Council Group and Lottery organisations and individuals working in deliver the Mayor of London’s Green Annual Report and Financial Statements all aspects of the presentation and Theatre Plan, which aims to help 2008/09 (2009) development of the visual arts. theatres achieve reductions in carbon Since then, UKFC has carried out an http://bit.ly/8Vplim emissions by 60% from 1990 levels by internal audit and formed industry 2025. VAGA has committed to addressing working groups for each part of the ECOVENUE http://bit.ly/8uoITN climate change with its members and supply chain. Links to useful resources its own day to day practices. It are provided on its website, plus a established a Climate Change and the UK Film Council (UKFC) short 3-page briefing note, Change the Visual Arts Working Party in late 2009 Way You Work. An official The UK Film Council is the Government and is developing a programme of Environmental Strategy for UK Film is backed lead agency for film in the UK practical seminars for its members. It is yet to emerge, and environmental ensuring that the economic, cultural also working with Julie’s Bicycle to considerations do not appear to be and educational aspects of film are review sustainable practice within the built into funding criteria. effectively represented at home and visual arts sector. Change the Way You Work abroad. ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/14347 UKFC website states that ‘as a Non- VisitBritain UKFC has funded productions that Departmental Public Body, the UKFC is address climate change. For example, VisitBritain is Britain's national tourism required by its sponsoring department in 2008/09, it awarded £99,360 to agency, responsible for marketing in government, the DCMS, to put in Dogwoof distributors towards Franny Britain overseas and within the UK place policies to reduce its own Armstrong’s The Age of Stupid. itself. reliance on energy from fossil-fuel sources and to reduce its waste as part Sustainability is a key policy area for of its contribution to the Government’s UK Sport VisitBritain. It has partnered with DCMS Sustainable Development Action Plan.’ and VisitLondon in the development of UK Sport works in partnership with the a new sustainable tourism framework As with other lottery distributors, UKFC home country sports councils and which encompasses economic, social must take into account policy other agencies to lead sport in the UK and environmental considerations. directions defined by the Secretary of to world-class success. UK Sport is Winning: A tourism strategy for 2012 State for Culture, Media and Sport. responsible for managing and and beyond published the results of the These were updated in 2008 and distributing public investment and is a consultation on the new framework. include ‘the need to further the statutory distributor of funds raised by The framework itself includes an objectives of sustainable development’. the National Lottery. update to the National Sustainable UKFC states that it is supporting digital UK Sport produced Practical Tourism Indicators first published in technology, and that ‘on location Environmental Guidelines for venue 2006, which include carbon emissions, filming of any Lottery-funded film, managers and event organisers on how energy efficiency and transport. producers are expected to be sensitive to stage a ‘green’ event, drawing from Targets may be considered when the to the needs of the environment and UK Sport’s experience supporting the indicators are next reviewed in 2012. the use of natural resources’. staging of numerous Commonwealth, Winning: A tourism strategy for 2012 UK Film Council Group and Lottery European and World Championships on and beyond (2009) http://bit.ly/6Z9CEc Annual Report and Financial Statements UK soil over the last few years. 2008/09 (2009) Sustainable Tourism in England: A Practical Environmental Guidelines framework for action - Meeting the key The UKFC commissioned research in Published 2002 (hard copy only) challenges (2009) http://bit.ly/MjK0l 2007, which focused on the UK Sport has undertaken various implications of climate change and pieces of research to evaluate the made recommendations for an impact of major sporting events at a environmental strategy for UK film. regional and national level. The next These included: adopting internal UKFC report will include a consideration of environmental management system environmental issues alongside the with long-term goals; working with the economic and social impacts. film industry to define a strategy for

34 britishcouncil.org/longhorizons Devolved Nations – and reduce it annually, and to Film Agency for Wales encourage and influence those it works Scotland The sole agency to support and with. promote film in Wales. Film Agency for Scottish Arts Council (SAC) Wales does not appear to have any Historic Scotland major policy or strategic commitments The lead body for the funding, to address climate change and Historic Scotland is an executive development and advocacy of the arts environmental sustainability. in Scotland. agency of the Scottish Government charged with safeguarding the nation’s SAC is due to become part of the new historic environment and promoting its Devolved Nations – body Creative Scotland in 2010. understanding and enjoyment. Northern Ireland

SAC and the planned Creative Scotland As part of the Scottish Government, it have aligned their priorities to five of aims to contribute to the ‘Greener Arts Council of Northern Ireland the National Outcomes in the Scottish Scotland’ agenda, although The funding and development agency Government’s National Performance commitment does not yet appear to be for the arts in Northern Ireland. Framework. One of these is to ‘reduce reflected in measurable targets. It aims the local and global environmental to increase support to technical and In its current five year plan, Arts impact of our consumption and conservation research regarding Council of Northern Ireland states that production’. SAC is working with the climate change to increase awareness it will actively support the principles set cultural sector in 2009/10 to ‘develop in the sector. out in the Northern Ireland Executive meaningful measures, indicators and Historic Scotland Corporate Plan government’s sustainable development baselines’. SAC is also developing 2008-11 strategy, although this aim is not linked internal environmental policy and to specific measures. reviewing energy consumption in Creative Connections: a 5 year plan for 2009/10. Devolved Nations – developing the arts 2007-2012 Scottish Arts Council Business Plan Wales 2009 Arts Council of Wales (ACW) Regional Scottish Screen The lead body for the funding, Greater London Authority (GLA) The national development agency for development and advocacy of the arts the screen industries in Scotland. in Wales. The Greater London Authority is the executive body of the Mayor of London, As with SAC, Scottish Screen is due to Under its agreement with the Welsh with strategic responsibility for become part of Creative Scotland in Assembly Government (WAG), activities transport, planning, economic 2010. Future policy towards climate of ACW are expected to contribute to development and the environment in change and film will therefore be set by commitments of the national One Wales the city. Creative Scotland when it becomes strategic agenda. These include fully operational. Like SAC, Scottish promoting a sustainable environment. The Greater London Authority Act of Screen is committed to meeting ACW must also meet the targets of 1999, gave the Mayor powers and Scottish Government National Outcome WAG’s Sustainable Procurement responsibilities relating to the to ‘reduce the local and global Assessment Framework and environment and climate change. This environmental impact of our Sustainable Development Action Plan. was strengthened in the 2007 revision consumption and production’. ACW Remit Letter 2008-09 to the Act by obliging the Mayor to Scottish Screen Corporate Plan produce statutory strategies around ACW is reviewing its internal 2009/10 to 2010/11 mitigating and adapting to climate environmental policy 2009/10, and change in London. Scottish Screen currently states that it developing targets and actions. ACW ‘is committed to the continual will also address how to engage funded Whether as a direct consequence of improvement of its environmental organisations and stakeholders in this or not, both the previous and performance recognising the implementing and monitoring existing Mayoral administrations have contribution that this will make to the sustainable development goals, and explicitly developed work programmes wider sustainability agenda in Scotland’. hold workshops to communicate policy. around culture and the creative It aims to conform with legislation and Operational Plan 2009/10 industries and climate change. The principles of the ‘greening government’ London Climate Change Action Plan agenda, to adopt energy and resource aims to reduce the overall footprint of efficient practices internally (e.g. London’s CO2e emissions by 60% by travel), to calculate its carbon footprint 2025. This applies to arts and culture.

britishcouncil.org/longhorizons 35 The GLA has now published three best- Individual regional cultural bodies Local Government and Culture practice ‘green guidebooks’, for the continue to exist, such as Arts Council Local authorities are no longer obliged theatre, music and screen industries, England’s regional offices and the to produce cultural strategies. Many providing advice and case studies as to English Regional Screen Agencies. still do, but these tend to be aligned how these industries can minimise their Regional MLA Councils have been with local priorities around education, carbon footprint. In each instance, restructured and reabsorbed into a young people, tackling social exclusion, steering groups composed of leading national body; future mergers or wellbeing, employment, business industry figures were established in restructures in other sectors are a growth and regeneration. Climate order to ensure that analysis of how possibility. change is rarely a key issue, although and where carbon emissions were sustainable development in the broader taking place in the sector supply chains English Regional Screen Agencies sense (social, economic and were understood and most effectively (RSAs) environmental) may be a priority. addressed. A fourth guidebook for the Visual Arts sector has now been The network of nine RSAs has recently However, energy, climate change and commissioned. been strengthened with the the environment are becoming greeningtheatres.com/about appointment of a Chief Executive and increasingly important issues for local independent Chair, increasing the authorities at the corporate level juliesbicycle.com/resources/green- likelihood of a coordinated response to including a number of national music-guide climate change. Currently, this is not a indicators of environmental filmlondon.org.uk/greenscreen priority. Activities of the RSAs differ in sustainability introduced in 2007 as each region, depending on local part of a new performance framework priorities, partnerships and levels of for local government. As a result, English Regional Development funding. Broadly the RSAs are focused locally-funded cultural venues and Agencies (RDAs) on supporting local media production, events may find themselves under Several of the RDAs have made skills development, creative business pressure to improve energy efficiency considerable investment in supporting support, film location services etc., and and reduce emissions, while new and growing creative industries since responding to government agendas buildings will be expected to conform they were created in 1998. However, such as Digital Britain. to more stringent standards. although they were established with a National Indicators for Local Authorities South West Screen has adopted Green remit to promote ‘sustainable economic and Local Authority Partnerships: Filmmaking Guidelines, and encourages development’, they are not obliged to Handbook of Definitions (2008) productions filming in the region to consider how to address climate http://bit.ly/4Z0A3K adopt them. change in their investments and Some local authorities, such as interventions. Where they have done, it Green Filmmaking Guidelines (2009) Westminster, are taking a proactive has tended to be through the http://bit.ly/13OtMU role. Launched in February 2009, the promotion of ‘green technologies’ Film London has also developed the Westminster Carbon Alliance is a industries and supporting innovations Green Screen guide and carbon borough wide partnership of in the environmental sector (several of calculator for filmmakers, in organisations and projects aiming to them have been active in these areas), conjunction with industry and public deliver carbon reduction and energy rather than as an over-arching theme sector partners, and with support from efficiency projects in Westminster. which would apply to all supported the GLA. The Alliance is working with partners in sectors, such as the creative industries. filmlondon.org.uk/greenscreen the local government estate, creative industries, the voluntary sector, Individual RSAs have also funded English Regional Cultural Bodies housing, commercial landlords and specific productions with ecological small and medium sized enterprises. The dismantling of the English Regional themes. For example, Screen South Cultural Consortia has left no strategic supported the documentaries Garbage In 2008 the Leader of the Council body capable of linking policies across Warrior and The End of the Line. stated that Westminster is aiming to the creative sectors at the regional become carbon neutral by 2012 level to broader issues such as climate Arts Council England (ACE) Individual local authority cultural change. Regional Offices officers fund a wide range of small- scale and community arts projects, See the main ACE entry above. many of which explore environmental themes (e.g. projects with schools).

36 britishcouncil.org/longhorizons appendix ii) resources and tools

A brief guide to Executive Agencies, including buildings Guidance for environmental measuring and land managed. sustainability reporting and reporting systems for • GRI: Sustainability reporting the UK cultural and Voluntary, sector-specific guidelines initiatives or awards creative sector schemes The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is a network-based organisation that has Responding practically to climate • BSI (British Standards Institute) and pioneered the development of a widely change requires that arts organisations ISO (International Organisation for used sustainability reporting address their management of staff, Standardisation) provide both guidance framework. They are committed to its systems, assets, and ways of working. for implementing an environmental continuous improvement and One of the first steps an organisation management system (see below) and a application worldwide. This framework should undertake is an audit identifying standard against which organisations sets out the principles and indicators their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, can be certified by a third party that organisations can use to measure and steps to reduce this impact. This assessor. and report their economic, should in turn feed into an action plan environmental, and social performance. for ongoing engagement probably • BREEAM (The Building Research sitting alongside or within the Establishment’s Environmental organisation’s environmental policy. Assessment Methodology) can be Carbon measurement Implementing an environmental applied to all non-residential building methodologies management system that supports the refurbishments and new builds. action plan and environmental policy is Note: these sources of guidance form • The Carbon Reduction Label can be critical to success. Therefore the basis for many of the schemes listed awarded to products or services that organisations will need to identify above. have undergone a life cycle analysis of technical data (actual emissions their embodied emissions. • Greenhouse Gas Protocol: The GHG sources and results, i.e. the ‘carbon Protocol is the internationally footprint’), practical actions and • Carbon Disclosure Project operates recognised standard for corporate management systems to ensure a the only global climate change accounting and reporting of comprehensive response. reporting system for any organisation greenhouse gas emissions developed wishing, or requested, to publicly It is likely that an organisation may jointly by the World Resources Institute report their greenhouse gas emissions engage at a number of levels: (WRI) and World Business Council for and climate change strategies. Sustainable Development (WBCSD). Regulatory schemes • The Carbon Trust Standard is • ISO14064-1 – Greenhouse gases: A awarded to organisations that measure, specification with guidance at the • Energy Performance Certificates manage and reduce their carbon organisation level for quantification and (EPCs) and Display Energy footprint. reporting of greenhouse gas emissions Certificates (DECs). Mandatory for any and removals. • EMAS - the Eco-Management and building being built, sold or rented, the Audit Scheme is a voluntary initiative EPC includes an A-G rating of the • Department of Environment, Food established by European regulation to energy efficiency and carbon emissions and Rural Affairs/Department of improve companies’ environmental of the building. DECs are required of Energy and Climate Change: In line performance. buildings occupied by a public with the UK , DEFRA/DECC have published guidance authority or institution and buildings • Industry Green is a certification 2 on emissions reporting for businesses more than 1,000m in floor area scheme tailored to the creative including guidance on what conversion industries managed by Julie’s Bicycle. • The Carbon Reduction Commitment factors to apply to the activities Industry Green provides a framework (CRC) is an emissions trading scheme included within the carbon footprint. for ongoing GHG emissions reductions. that will achieve reductions and affects all government departments and large • The Greener Festival Award scheme businesses whose annual half-hourly is based around the twin aims of metered electricity use is above 6,000 promoting greener practices and megawatt-hours (MWh). promoting sustainability.

• Sustainable Operations on the • The Green Tourism Business Government Estate (SOGE) sets Scheme is the national sustainable sustainability targets and reporting tourism certification scheme for the UK. requirements for all central Government Departments and their

britishcouncil.org/longhorizons 37 Guidance for GHG “life Free Tools for GHG • Green Theatre Carbon Calculator cycle assessment” of a Measurement http://bit.ly/7Pl10t key product or service A downloadable excel spreadsheet- • Arts Energy Toolkit based tool that identifies which areas in • PAS 2050 – Publicly Available artsenergy.org.uk a given theatre production that are the Specification for the assessment of Arts Council England has developed a biggest generators of carbon the life cycle greenhouse gas self-assessment web-based toolkit for emissions, enabling the creation of an emissions of goods and services. arts organisations to help them appropriate action plan. Developed by BSI for DEFRA and the implement an effective energy Carbon Trust, the PAS 2050 approach management programme including an • Rural Museums Network Carbon is different from organisational action plan. Measures building energy Calculator http://bit.ly/76m7NI A downloadable excel spreadsheet- reporting as it involves assessing use only, in kWh but not CO2 emissions across the “life cycle” of the based calculator helps rural museums • Carbon Trust http://bit.ly/4yoQ0K product, otherwise known as the calculate their carbon footprint. Web-based calculator that helps “embodied emissions”, for example organisations calculate their annual from those associated with the carbon footprint using data on fuel and Free Tools for creating extraction and processing of raw vehicle usage, the company’s action plans materials right through transport, electricity bill and employee travel. An storage, to use and disposal of the • Arts Energy Toolkit see above indicator tool that uses energy bills and product. sector type is also available. • DCMS Toolkit see above • ISO 14040 – Environmental • DCMS Toolkit http://bit.ly/5ugUFg • Eventberry eventberry.com management. Life cycle assessment. A downloadable document-based Eventberry is a web-based tool Principles and framework. toolkit that provides guidance on how designed to enable sustainable event International standards on life cycle to develop a carbon policy and gather management and BS8901 compliance. assessment (LCA) are available in data to produce an annual carbon ISO14040 and 14044. footprint. Free Tool for GHG Guidance for • Enworks efficiencytoolkit.net Emissions and Energy environmental The web-based ENWORKS Efficiency Monitoring Toolkit assists businesses to improve management systems • SMEasure smeasure.org.uk their resource efficiency across a SMEasure is a web-based tool for • ISO14001 – Environmental number of indicators including GHG building energy use analysis and Management System. emissions. carbon monitoring. Unlike the Provides a framework for the • IG (Industry Green) tools calculators listed above which are an development of an environmental juliesbicycle.com/industry-green annual or one-off “snapshot” SMEasure management system and the Web-based tools designed for the analyses building performance on a supporting audit programme. specific needs of creative sector weekly basis. Using regular meter • BS8555 organisations to measure and readings and incorporating weather- Building on BS EN ISO 14001 and the benchmark annual GHG emissions and energy analysis, it has been developed EU Eco-Management and Audit Scheme other environmental impacts resulting specifically for the needs of small and (EMAS), this British Standard provides from venues, festivals and outdoor medium-sized businesses. guidance to all organisations on the events and offices. phased implementation, maintenance • Green Screen Carbon Calculator and improvement of a formal For more extensive information http://bit.ly/4Fnocs Environmental Management System please see A downloadable excel spreadsheet- (EMS). based carbon calculator it enables juliesbicycle.com/resources • BS8901 setting a ‘carbon budget’ that can be The British Standard that provides managed along with the production’s britishcouncil.org/climatechange.htm requirements for planning and financial budget, thus working towards managing sustainable events of all sizes carbon reductions. and types.

38 britishcouncil.org/longhorizons appendix iii) glossary

Carbon Dioxide. A naturally occurring equipment or emissions from www.wri.org/publication/content/7778 gas, and a by-product of burning fossil organisation-owned premises, such as www.ghgprotocol.org/ fuels and biomass, as well as land-use carbon dioxide from electricity IPCC. The Intergovernmental Panel on changes and other industrial processes. generators, gas boilers and vehicles, or Climate Change. A special intergovern- It is the principal anthropogenic methane from landfill sites. mental body established by the United greenhouse gas that affects the Earth’s Emissions. The release of a substance Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) radiative balance. It is the reference gas (usually a gas when referring to climate and the World Meteorological against which other greenhouse gases change) into the atmosphere. Organisation (WMO) to provide are measured and therefore has a Global assessments of the results of climate Warming Potential of 1. Global warming. The continuous change research to policy makers. The gradual rise of the earth's surface Carbon Dioxide Equivalent (CO e). The Greenhouse Gas Inventory Guidelines 2 temperature thought to be caused by universal unit of measurement used to are being developed under the auspices the greenhouse effect and responsible indicate the global warming potential of the IPCC and will be recommended for changes in global climate patterns. (GWP) of each of the six Kyoto for use by parties to the Framework greenhouse gases. It is used to evaluate Global Warming Potential (GWP). Convention on Climate Change. the impacts of releasing (or avoiding the The GWP is an index that compares the Indirect emissions. Emissions that are a release of) different greenhouse gases. relative potential (to CO ) of the six 2 consequence of the activities of the greenhouse gases to contribute to Climate. Climate in a narrow sense is reporting company but occur from global warming i.e. the additional usually defined as the “average weather,” sources owned or controlled by another heat/energy which is retained in the or more rigorously, as the statistical organisation or individual. They include Earth’s ecosystem through the release description in terms of the mean and all outsourced power generation (e.g. of this gas into the atmosphere. The variability of relevant quantities over a electricity, hot water), outsourced additional heat/energy impact of all period of time ranging from months to services (e.g. waste disposal, business other greenhouse gases are compared thousands of years. The classical period travel, transport of company-owned with the impacts of carbon dioxide (CO ) is three decades as defined by the World 2 goods) and outsourced manufacturing and referred to in terms of a CO Meteorological Organization (WMO). 2 processes. Indirect emissions also cover equivalent (CO e) e.g. Carbon dioxide These quantities are most often surface 2 the activities of franchised companies has been designated a GWP of 1, variables such as temperature, and the emissions associated with Methane has a GWP of 21. precipitation, and wind. downstream and/or upstream Greenhouse Effect. Trapping and build- manufacture, transport and disposal of Climate change. A change of climate up of heat in the atmosphere products used by the organisation, which is attributed directly or indirectly (troposphere) near the Earth’s surface. referred to as product life-cycle to human activity that alters the Some of the heat flowing back towards emissions. composition of the global atmosphere space from the Earth’s surface is and which is in addition to natural Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol absorbed by water vapour, carbon climate variability over comparable time originated at the 3rd Conference of the dioxide, ozone, and several other gases periods. Parties (COP) to the United Nations in the atmosphere and then reradiated Convention on Climate Change held in Copenhagen Accord. The outcome of back toward the Earth’s surface. If the Kyoto, in December 1997. the 15th Conference of Parties at the atmospheric concentrations of these It specifies the level of emission United Nations Conference on Climate greenhouse gases rise, the average reductions, deadlines and Change held in Copenhagen in temperature of the lower atmosphere methodologies that signatory countries December 2009. It was hoped the will gradually increase. (i.e. countries who have signed the Conference would replace or extend the Greenhouse gases. The current IPCC Kyoto Protocol) are to achieve. Kyoto Protocol (see below) which will inventory includes six major greenhouse expire in 2012. However the outcome United Nations Framework Convention gases. These are Carbon dioxide (CO ), was an accord reached between the US, 2 on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Methane (CH ), Nitrous oxide (N O), China, India, Brazil and 4 2 Convention on Climate Change sets an Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which still has to be endorsed by the overall framework for intergovernmental Perfluorocarbons (PFCs), Sulphur 193 countries at the talk in order to efforts to tackle the challenge posed by hexafluoride (SF ). become an official UN agreement. 6 climate change. It recognizes that the Countries have been asked to submit Greenhouse Gas Protocol defines climate system is a shared resource their pledges for curbing carbon reporting principles and guidelines for whose stability can be affected by emissions by 2020, by February 1st auditing the GHG emissions of a industrial and other emissions of carbon 2010. The Accord recognises limiting company. Developed by the World dioxide and other greenhouse gases. temperature rises to less than 2°C above Business Council for Sustainable The Convention enjoys near universal pre-industrial levels. Development and the World Resources membership, with 189 countries having Institute, it has provided the basis of ratified. Direct emissions. Emissions that are international guidelines on company produced by organisation-owned reporting of carbon footprints. britishcouncil.org/longhorizons 39 Julie’s Bicycle thanks the following: Sian Alexander, Penny Andrews, Simon Banks, Catherine Bottrill, Tom Campbell, Sally Cowling, Peter Gingold, John Hartley, Emily Kay, Keith Khan, Colin Kirkpatrick, Catherine Langabeer, Laura McNamara, Judith Nesbitt, Sir Nick Serota, Maurice Walsh

contact details [email protected] +44 (0)161 957 7775 britishcouncil.org This publication is available to download at britishcouncil.org/longhorizons [email protected] juliesbicycle.com +44 (0)20 7379 6886

40 britishcouncil.org/longhorizons >> (cont.) Manchester International Festival Manuela Zanotti Marc Garrett Marcos Lutyens Margaret Atwood Maria Thereza Alves Mariele Neudecker Marije De Haas Mario Petrucci Marjetica Potrc Mark Dion Mark Edwards Mark McGowan Markus & Daniel Freitag Marmaduke Dando Hutchings Maroon 5 Marta Stysiak Martha Wainwright Martin Sexton Marvin & The Cats Mary Ann Lazarus Mary Oliver Mary-Chapin Carpenter Mason Jennings Master Shortie Materials for the Arts (MFTA) Matthew Dalziel & Louise Scullion Mau Mau MCPS-PRS Meadowlands Entertainment Group Melanie Challenger Melissa Etheridge Metal Michael Hopkins Michael Kerbow Michael Landy Michael Rakowitz Michaela Crimmin Michal Bolton Michele Noach Miles Epstein Minou Norouzi Missy Higgins moe. Mojisola Adebayo Mona El Mousfy Mona Hatoum Montreux Jazz Festival Moshi Moshi Music from Another Room Music Wood MusicMatters My Dad's Strip Club Nathan Gallagher National Portrait Gallery National Theatre National Theatre Scotland National Theatre Wales Nele Azevedo (Brazil) Newton Harrison Nic Balthazar Nicholas Grimshaw Nick Cobbing Nick Edwards Nicolas Henninger Nicole Krauss Nils Norman Ninja Tune No Doubt Norman Foster Northern Stage O.A.R Okkervil River Oliver Hodge OpenAir St Gallen Oran Cat Orbital Orlando Bloom Øya Festival Page and Plant Paléo Festival Nyon Pamel Lastiri Panic At The Disco Paule Constable Paddington Development Trust (PDT) Peats Ridge Festival Penelope Cruz (Jane's Addiction) Pete Seegar Peter & The Wolf Peter Clegg Peter Fend Peter Gilbert Peter L Johnson Phil Constable Phil Stebbing Philippe Rahm Pierce Brosnan Pinkpop Planet Green Portobello Nu-Jazz Festival PPL PRS for Music Queensryche Rachel Whiteread Radical Nature Ray Lamontagne Recoup Redell Olsen Reel Green Media REM REO Speedwagon Respond Reverb Rheinkultur Richard Branson Richard Buckminster Fuller Richard Lerman Richard Long Richard Mabey Richard Rogers Rip Curl Festival RiverWired Rob Newman Robbie Schoen & Isaac Frankle Robert Bringhurst Robert Smithson Hitchcock Rock & Wrap It Up Rock Rod Dickinson Rogue Wave Rolling Stones Roo Borson Rothbury Rototom Sunsplash Royal Albert Hall Royal Court Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) Royal Scottish National Opera Rupert Murray Rusted Root Ruth Catlow Ruth Jarman Ruth Little Ruth Tabancay Ryuichi Sakamoto Saci Lloyd Sage Gateshead Sam Bozzo Sam Collins Samir Srouji Sandra Mendler Santana Sarah Harmer Sarah Smizz Scenary Salvage Scott Hessels Scott Oliver Sean Bonney Sergio Vega Serj Tankian Shambala Festival Ships & Dip V Shiro Takatani Shlomo Sienna Miller Simon Starling Siobhan Davies Sisters of the Mona Lisa Skip Schuckmann Smashing Pumpkins SMG Europe Soleil Moon Sonisphere Sony Music UK Sophie Calle Soul Asylum Southbank Centre Southbound Festival Spencer Finch Standon Calling Stars State Radio Stella McCartney Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers Steve Trash Steve Waters Stone Temple Pilots Styx Suba Subramaniam Summer Sundae Weekender Sunand Prasad Sunrise Celebration Festival Superflex Susan Richardson Sustainability and Contemporary Art Sustainable Art Sustainable Dance Club Sustainable Fashion Sustainable Style Foundation Sustainable Theatre Company Suzan-Lori Parks Suzanne Moxhay Swallow Theatre Szegedi Ifjusagi Napok T.R.A.I.L (Trail Recycled Art in Landscape) Tacita Dean Tania Kovats Tate Taubertal Festival Terje Isungset The Center for Sustainable Practise in the Arts The City of London Festival The Dead The Ditty Bops The Duhks The Eagles The Eco Dance The Falls Festival The Fray The Glade The Green Theater The Junction The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination The Life Poets The The Pidgeon Detectives The Presidents of the of America The Story of Stuff The Swell Season The Three Tenors Theatre Royal Plymouth Third Ring Out by Metis Arts Thomas Herzog Thomas Ruff Tim Dey Tim Fitzhigham Tim Knowles Tim Lilburn T-In-The-Park Tipping Point and the Heartbreakers Tomas Saraceno Toshifumi Matsushita Tracey Bush Tracey Emin Tracey Rowledge Tracy Moffatt Trashcatchers' Carnival by Project Phakama UK Truck Tue Greenfort Turtuga Blanku Unicorn United Visual Artists Universal Music V&A Vanessa Carlton Vicky Long Vikram Seth Vince Gill Volcano Theatre Company Von Gerkan Marg Wallflowers Warner Music Group WATT Waveform Festival Weekend au bord de l'eau Wendell Berry Werner Herzog West Beach Festival William Hunt William McDonough William Odell William Shaw William Stanley Merwin Wireless Wolves In The Throne Room WOMADelaide Wood Workhouse Festival Wysing Arts Yael Bartana Yann Arthus-Bertrand Yann Martel Yao Lu Yishai Orian Y-Not Young Vic Zbigniew Kotkiewicz Graphic design: Positive Design Works. Printed in Surrey using vegetable oil-based inks by Positive Images (FSC certified and registered with The Environment Agency).