This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

The Festival season is picking up speed and the array of events offered can be quite overwhelming. So we compiled a handy list of 10 things about environmental sustainability to do at the various festivals around Edinburgh this August. You’ll notice the Festival Fringe is absent – for weekly updates on which green Fringe shows you should see, follow #GreenFests on our blog.

We hope you enjoy these suggestions and have a fantastic festival experience!

1. Climate Change: On the Edge of The World

19 Aug | 7.30-9.00pm | Quaker Meeting House

Just Festival hosts this year’s events under the hashtag “FromTheEdge”, including discussions, talks, exhibitions and performances. From marginalised groups in society to climate change, their programme is expansive and thought-provoking. This Just Festival Conversation in particular will look at what is being done to help communities around the world respond to the threats of climate change and whether disaster can be avoided.

2. … though it be darkness there

16 Aug | 9.30-10.30pm | St John’s Church

This performance at Just Festival brings together musician Matilda Brown and photographer Nick Rowle to collaborate on a series of musical and photographic pieces focusing on the mysteries of landscape. Within this new series of work, Matilda and Nick capture the mystical and unknowable wonder of nature; silence and darkness, solitude, encountering the sublime, sensual and occasionally violent forces of nature.

3. Richard Watson: Get Ready for Tomorrow

13 Aug | 12.30 – 1.30pm | Garden Theatre

This year’s Book Festival programme includes the theme “A Changing Society”, with speakers from many disciplines. In this talk,global trends analyst Richard Watson speaks about the influence of our rapidly evolving technology on our society. What should technology do for us, beyond much-shared cat videos? In Digital vs Human, Watson predicts the areas of life that could genuinely be improved for the better.

4. Mark Kurlansky: Does Paper have a Future?

17 Aug | 12.30 – 1.30pm | Garden Theatre

For centuries we thought of paper as a wonderful and indispensable invention. Yet in recent years, we seem to have been striving towards a paperless society, suggesting it now has negative connotations. For his book Paper: Paging Through History, Mark Kurlansky, New York Times bestselling author of Cod and Salt, traces paper back to its origins and follows its path towards the digital age.

5. Barbara Rae: Return Journey

1-31 August | 10.00am – 6.00pm | Open Eye Gallery

The Art Festival returns this year with a wide variety of artists to showcase. One of them is artist and printmaker Barbara Rae, whose collection of art pieces encompasses locations from around the world, studying human habitation by ancient and modern societies that live off and work on the land. She works and exhibits here a variety of media, sometimes semi-abstract, often abstract, depicting the ruggedness of life’s daily struggle.

6. Walking Institute – Deveron Arts: Tours

Various Days and times

Part of the Art Festival programme are a series of guided walks and discussions about travel organised by the Walking Institute, Deveron Arts and the Forest Fringe. There is “Walking Women“, where artist’s walks and talks will run alongside a Wikipedia edit-a-thon of women walking artists, an open mic pecha-kucha, a ‘walkie-talkie’ mobile workshop, and a library of walking women books. “How Humans adapt” looks at how the simple process of walking can become an experimental artistic performance. “All Roads lead to Venice/Ugly Walk” is a combination of a guided walk, looking to explore the ugly landscapes of industrial estates, countering the expectations that a beautiful walk is tied to natural landscapes, and a series of discussions concerning artists undertaking long distance journeys.

7. P + P

20-26 August | 11.00am – 4.00pm | Courier Company Pack and Send

P+P explores the issues of waste and recycling in today’s consumerist society. Ten artists from around the world have been sent a 30 x 30 x 30 cardboard box and asked to use it as the basis for creating or sending a new art work. Expect a mix of installation, animation, painting and object-making by artists exploring ideas around the figure, the fantastical and spontaneity.

8. Mogwai & Mark Cousins – Atomic: Living In Dread and Promise

27 & 28 August | 9.00pm | Edinburgh Playhouse

The Edinburgh International Festival once again collects big names in Edinburgh this August, including this collaboration between filmmaker Mark Cousins and musicians Mogwai. With images of protest marches, Cold War confrontation, Chernobyl and Fukushima, Cousins’ impressionistic film is a kaleidoscope of the appalling destructive power of the atomic bomb, and also the beauty and benefits of x-rays and MRI scans. Mogwai’s compelling soundtrack encapsulates the nightmare of the nuclear age, but also its dreamlike beauty.

9. Yann Tiersen

21 & 22 August | 7.30pm | The Hub

French composer and multi-instrumentalist Yann Tiersen is best known for his quirky score to Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 2001 film Amélie. But that only scratches the surface of his enormously rich, magical musical output. After touring the globe for nearly a decade in planes and buses, Tiersen is now slowly cycling around the world, stopping for performances both in traditional venues and in the wilderness.

10. ANOHNI: Hopelessness

17 August | 8.00pm | Edinburgh Playhouse

Working with groundbreaking producers Oneohtrix Point Never and Hudson Mohawke, “Hopelessness“collides an uncompromising electronic dance soundtrack with ANOHNI’s soulful, uplifting vocals. “Hopelessness“ is a scream of fury against the evils of today’s world: mass surveillance, drone warfare, ecocide. Delivered in infectious, unforgettable pop. This is the electronic dance anthem as visceral protest song.

The post #GreenFests: 10 Green Things To Do In Edinburgh This August appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

We recently realised just how much we managed to fit in this summer! I bet you’d be surprised, we were!

Below is a collage of the events we have run this summer, not including our monthly Green Teases. They are in the following order: Going Green: Good for the Screen, “Achieving Social Change, Festival by Festival”, our Green Arts Initiative social media campaign, our #GreenFests blog, the Fringe Sustainable Practice Award, and the Fringe Swap Shops.

 

To find out more about our summer activities take a look at our #GreenFests blog!

Also, just because the festival season is over don’t think that is the end of our Creative Carbon Scotland events!

This month we have our two Green Teases; the first on the 29th of September, an Edinburgh Green Spaces Barge Tour with Edinburgh & Lothian Green Spaces Trust (ELGT) , and the second, on the 30th of September in Glasgow, ‘A Space for Art’ with Dress for the Weather. We also have, coming up in October, our 50 Shades of Green: Stories of Sustainability in the Arts Sector conference at the Pearce Institute in Glasgow.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates of what CCS has planned!

The post Creative Carbon Scotland’s Summer Festival Season appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Back in June Creative Carbon Scotland advertised an opportunity for a local artist to craft this years Fringe Sustainable Practice Award. Those of you that know the award well will remember the original piece of paper we gave to award winners at the live ceremony. Things progressed from there and we presented our winners with a beautifully carved wooden plaque. This year however, we wanted to present the winner with a hand crafted award piece that took into account the ideas and aspirations of the Fringe Sustainable Practice Award.

Sarah Diver Lang

After sieving through all of the proposals, we commissioned Sarah Diver Lang, a printmaker and graphic designer working from Process Studios. The award piece Sarah crafted was beautiful. We therefore wanted to share the story behind its creation, and talk a bit more about Sarah herself.

The concept of the award was to use only found or recycled materials to reflect the spirit of sustainability. Sarah sourced her materials from local areas including Sam Burns Yard in Prestonpans, various car boot sales, and gathered objects from her studio collection.

The award consists of wood, copper, glass and graph paper. Graph paper was used to highlight the process of planning that goes into a sustainable production. The idea of using mixed materials was proposed in the hope that the materials, over time, would react with one another, reflecting our changing attitudes and response to dealing with sustainability.

Only hand techniques were used, without glues or electrical machinery, to keep the energy used to create the award to a minimum. Sarah used a screen print technique to print logos and the crucial winners information onto the wood and paper.

Click to view slideshow.

We asked Sarah what it was that attracted her to the award?

“I was attracted to the award due to the theme of sustainability. It is important to me, as a maker, to consider how or why something is made. It is especially relevant to celebrate this during the Fringe; amongst all the amazing things going on, I feel, there is also far too much of everything. Food and packaging, flyers and brochures hang out of over flowing bins, so it is essential to bring sustainable consideration to this ever growing festival.”

And, what other sustainability initiatives she is engaged with?

“Sustainability is a subject of great interest to me as I become more aware of my responsibility as an artist/ producer. In a lot of ways I add to the problem, as a graphic designer I work mainly in print over digital and am constantly finding my work adding to the world’s ultimate waste. It is conflicting to work in this way, and is a problem a lot of creative people struggle with. To combat this, I am currently making a magazine that deals with compostable paper and ink: ‘Outline’. The magazine will hopefully lead to raising awareness about our throw away culture; with this form of paper its fine to throw away…even encouraged!”

For more information on Sarah Diver Lang and her other inspiring projects, check out her webpage here.

The 2015 Fringe Sustainable Practice Award for sustainable design, content and production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, was awarded to Paines Plough for their production of Lungs, written by Duncan Macmillan, and performed at the Roundabout at Summerhall. For more information on Lungs, see our blogpost here.

The post #GreenFests: Meet Sarah Diver Lang, the crafter of the 2015 Fringe Sustainable Practice Award appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

The 2015 Fringe Sustainable Practice Award for sustainable design, content and production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe,  was awarded today to Paines Plough for their production of Lungs, written by Duncan Macmillan, and performed at the Roundabout at Summerhall.

In a ceremony at Fringe Central on Friday, August 28nd at 4:00 pm, after presentations by Brendan Miles from The List and CSPA Director Ian Garrett, Jessica Fosteskew, stand up comedian and writer for Channel 4, BBC and Radio 4, presented Paines Plough with the 2015 Award for Sustainable Production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Lungs was selected due to its stunning artistic portrayal of love, decisions and the effect of time on human relationships. As the company describes:

“Lungs is ultimately about two people in  love, navigating their way through the practicalities of modern life. However as they struggle over how their relationship should progress, they voice concerns over issues of overpopulation and climate change – asking themselves “Is this the kind of world I want to bring a child into?””

The show was performed in the round in the company’s custom-made ‘Roundabout’ theatre; itself exemplary of sustainable theatre design, with all the LED lighting capable of being powered by 13-amp sockets. It is also a long-term production, having premièred over 4 years ago, and with an upcoming tour planned, and their theatre’s portability enhancing access to the arts in lesser-served areas of the UK. The assessment panel were particularly impressed by the way in which the production sensitively integrated and normalised sustainability concerns alongside other common decision factors relating to employment, children and lifestyle – and made them both laugh and cry!

Run by the CSPA and CCS, with media partnership from The List, the Fringe Sustainable Practice Award is an annual celebration of performance that is working for an environmentally sustainable world, now in its 6th year. Open to all  productions participating in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the award assesses all aspects of a production’s sustainability, from design to content.

The award is determined by the submission of a questionnaire about the sustainability considerations of the practical production elements of the show, and how environmental and sustainable themes were considered along the way. From the initial applications, the assessors selected a shortlist of 21 productions, published online by The List.

These 21 shows were reviewed during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (you can read our CCS FSPA diary here), and based on their questionnaires and the reviews, the assessment team voted for the production which most aligned with the priorities of the award. Five finalists – Garden, Lungs, Scarfed for Life, Sing for Your Life, and The Handlebards: Secret Shakespeare – were identified as outstanding entries before the winner was selected.

Click here to read more about the other 2015 FSPA Finalists. 

The award for Sustainable Practice on the Fringe was first launched in 2010 at the Hollywood Fringe and Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Previous recipients include:  The Pantry Shelf (Edinburgh 2010), produced by Team M&M at Sweet Grassmarket; Presque Pret a Porter (Hollywood 2010), produced by Dreams by Machine; Allotment (Edinburgh 2011), produced by nutshell productions at the Inverleith Allotments in co-production with Assembly; The Man Who Planted Trees (Edinburgh 2012), produced by the Edinburgh’s Puppet State Theatre; How to Occupy an Oil Rig (Edinburgh 2013), by Daniel Bye and Company, produced by Northern Stage; The Handlebards: A Comedy of Errors (Edinburgh 2014), produced by Peculius at the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh.

Ian Garrett and Miranda Wright founded the CSPA in early 2008. The organization provides a network of resources to arts organizations, which enables them to be ecologically and economically sustainable while maintaining artistic excellence. Past and Present partnerships have included the University of Oregon, Ashden Directory, Arcola Theatre, Diverseworks Artspace, Indy Convergence, York University, LA Stage Alliance and others.

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. CCS believes cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

The post Winner Announced for Fringe Sustainable Practice Award! appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

The Edinburgh International Festival was founded shortly after the end of the Second World War with the intention of rejuvenating the cultural sectors of Scotland, Britain and Europe. As people came to terms with the tragedies of recent years, the festival set about facilitating the social change that was needed. This intention is one that is still shared by many festivals today, but can it be achieved? What do we need from our festivals to accomplish social change?

During the Fringe, Creative Carbon Scotland (in conjunction with Festivals Edinburgh and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe) hosted an event to discuss just these questions. ‘Changing the World, Festival by Festival’ was presented by Ben Twist, experienced theatre director turned founder and director of Creative Carbon Scotland, and Stella Hall, fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and freelance festival director.

In fact, Stella Hall is nothing short of a festival guru. Current Festival Director of Darlington’s award-winning Festival of Thrift, she was also:

• one of four inaugural ‘Canny Creatives’ advising the British Council on Arts programme development in Turkey and Kazakhstan
• Co-founder of the Greenroom, Manchester’s first arts centre.
• Director of Warwick Arts Centre
• Festival Director of the Belfast Festival at Queens and
• The first Festival Director of the Preston Guild, an event that has occurred in the city every twenty years since 1179.

Not to mention the fact that she is a board member of the Wildworks Theatre in Cornwall, ISIS Arts in Newcastle, ArtsAdmin in London and was a member of the Music, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts panel of the Research Excellence Framework. Long story short, Stella Hall knows her festivals.

Although this event had the format of a formal talk, it was more of a conversation between Ben, Stella and all who attended, many of whom were themselves prominent members of the arts world. With Stella’s expertise as a festival director, Ben’s in-depth knowledge of sustainability in the arts, and the knowledge and experience of all there (including performers, festival organisers, and marketing executives to name a few) a very interesting discussion ensued. Impossible to summarise, here I simply present what I took to be the main points of debate.

The first of these was the importance of the discomfort zone. Herein lies the possibility of change. For Stella, the discomfort zone is the place she must enter when trying to put on a festival that satisfies the needs of people with different motivations and ideas from her own. The key to finding a solution that suits all is not only to enter this discomfort zone where your own perspective and convictions are challenged, but to stay there. The longer you stay in the discomfort zone with someone, the more likely it is that you will find a connect, a point of agreement around which a compromise can be constructed and progress made.

The discomfort zone also works as a direct driver for change. Festivals wishing to create social change arguably need to include events which challenge attitudes towards the status quo. The audience are forced to genuinely consider their own position. What’s good about it? What’s not? What change in attitude or action is required? The active engagement required from audiences in response to such events are likely to have stronger consequences than passive attendance at one that merely dictates an alternative approach.

The second focal point for discussion was the importance of communities. These are not just the communities in which the festivals take place (e.g. Edinburgh as a city) but also the communities that are created by the festivals, both intentionally and by chance. This is especially the case if the festivals are based around a particular theme, as in the Festival of Thrift (see left). If festivals are to inspire lasting change then they must engage with all of these communities.

One such way of engaging is to create a sense of community ownership over the festival. It has to come from them, they have to see it as theirs. Stella found this was particularly important when she directed the Preston Guild. It is a Prestonian institution and belongs far more to the city and its people than to a festival director. Stella found that acknowledging this and allowing the people to put on the festival that they wanted was crucial to its success.

It was noted, however, that there is a certain tension between giving the people both what they want and what they need. Many people, myself included, don’t often actively seek challenges to their existing viewpoints, which means we can miss out on new ideas. The example given in the talk was that of Sir Anthony Gormley’s Angel of the North (see right), which, because it was something entirely different and new, would likely never have been created had we designed the statue to be built.

There is also the challenge of creating this sense of community ownership in the face of a huge influx of new people coming specifically for the festivals. Major summer festivals like Glastonbury, Reading, T in the Park and, of course, the many Edinburgh festivals are particularly vulnerable to this. Whilst locals are often glad that the festivals occur (78% of Edinburgh citizens believe the festivals to be positive and 60% participate) they often feel separate from them. The festivals happen to them rather than with them as it were.

As well as better engaging with existing communities in the festival locations, one way to garner the sense of ownership that is required for social change is to engage with the communities that are created by the festivals. This can be an intentional community, as in Darlington’s Festival of Thrift which attracted people with a particular interest thereby facilitating discussion. They can also be unintentional, for example similarly themed shows in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe who find themselves performing alongside and socialising with performers with similar ideas and interests.

The challenge of creating lasting social change in these circumstances, as opposed to with pre-existent communities, is that the existence of these communities is so strongly tied to the festivals. Despite being connected by a shared idea, once the festival ends these communities are forcibly disbanded. Modern technology can go some way towards helping people keep connected (and indeed including those interested parties that were unable to physically attend) but it is difficult to maintain the momentum and drive that can be inspired during the festival.

The key to changing the world, festival by festival then seems to be twofold. First, the festivals must be events that encourage audiences to engage with the area in which change is desired, that question the status quo and provide an alternative perspective to be considered. Second, they must create lasting communities of the converted (for lack of a better term). This can be by including the local community and helping them develop a sense of ownership of the festival. It can also be by facilitating the creation of a new community, intentional or otherwise, that forms in response to the ideas being promulgated. If enough people are inspired then there is real hope that lasting change can be achieved.

The post #GreenFests: Changing the World, Festival by Festival appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Running an event can be stressful enough, so why bother adding to this by creating another aim or condition for your event? Being greener, however, doesn’t have to be difficult or more expensive – just look at this case study and you’ll already be making a green start.

Why would you want to run a green event?

The obvious reason is because it is the right thing to do. The climate is changing and it is our responsibility to address our actions and work towards a more sustainable world. Additionally, there are many other great reasons why you should aim to go green:

• Reduced costs
• Guests like green
• You will be ahead of new carbon regulations
• Going green shows you are inventive

How would you run a green event?

Case Study: Fringe Sustainable Practice Award Ceremony

Friday 28 August, 4 – 5pm at Fringe Central 1, see here for more details

1. Define your event goals and objectives

Why are you organising this event? What do you have to achieve? Who is it for? Is it as sustainable as reasonably possible?

The Fringe Sustainable Practice Award Ceremony celebrates Edinburgh Festival Fringe shows making significant efforts to become the most sustainable of the Fringe.

2. Identify your team

Identify your team and share with them the sustainable objectives of your event. Everyone will then be working towards a common green goal.

3. Organising outside suppliers

Venue: Find a venue that is part of a green accreditation scheme. In Scotland, search for a Green Arts Initiative (GAI) venue; click here to find one near you. The GAI supports Scottish arts organisations to be at the forefront of growing an environmentally sustainable Scotland.

The FSPA Ceremony will be held in Fringe Central 1, an accredited and proud GAI member.

Technical Requirements: Consider where your venues power comes from. Try reducing your electricity use to only vital requirements, and document such power use. If you are carbon footprinting look into offsetting the environmental cost of the electricity used.

Catering: Source local and seasonal, and think in terms of minimal waste!

Refreshments and catering sourced from two local companies will be provided at the FSPA ceremony. Cornelius Wine & Beer is providing local Scottish beer and cider (note, all glass bottles will be recycled). The Larder is providing us with seasonal canapés. Vegware is supporting our event, and donating eco-friendly plates, cups and napkins.

Travel: Get to know the local public travel facilities, and advertise walking routes to nearby attendees. For long distance travel look into trains or car-pools.

The FSPA Ceremony will be held in Edinburgh, an ideal city for sustainable transport because of its compact city centre and ample bus and cycle routes.

Our award guest speaker, the comedian Jessica Fostekew, unfortunately has a show finishing 5 minutes before the ceremony. After looking into various travel options, even considering a rickshaw, we found the most practical yet sustainable option to be City Cabs – City Cabs support Trees4Scotland in order to account for their carbon emissions, see their carbon neutral policy here.

4. Plan for Reuse

Even if your event is a one off, some of the materials you have used will more than likely come in useful again.

Creative Carbon Scotland (CCS) and Edinburgh Festival Fringe facilitate the reuse of production materials at a three-day Swap Shop, see here. If you won’t reuse an item from your event look online to see if someone nearby would (Gumtree is always a good place to start).

5. Publicity and marketing

Event attendees want to know how you are greening your practice, so show off your commitment to being green by publicising via print, digital or word-of-mouth channels.

Go digital! Come up with innovative ways of publicising your event that allow for smaller, cheaper print runs. Think about using ink stamps, or apps, or clever social media tactics.

If needed, use recycled or FSC-certified paper when printing. PR Print and Design and EAE print distribution are two companies based in Scotland who ensure sustainable printing and distribution. Make sure you monitor the quantity of print actually used, and reduce print runs when possible. Also, encourage attendees to recycle any flyers you give them.

The FSPA Ceremony has been publicised online using both the CCS and the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts webpages, and through our media partner The List. We have built up hype around the ceremony as the award itself has progressed, inviting all award applicants and including the event in our blog updates. Follow us on twitter to see our social media activity.

6. Evaluation tools

Do a carbon footprint: Carbon footprinting is a way to describe your environmental impact in terms of carbon emissions and is a great way to better understand how you can be greener, see here. Once you understand carbon footprinting you can begin to set yourself targets for future events.

Record how individuals are getting to your event, and how they found out about your event. How individuals found out about the event can be a great indicator on what forms of publicity worked and show which areas to reduce investment in (such as paper advertising).

For the FSPA Ceremony we are using tools on eventbrite to document both of the above.

Hopefully this case study has inspired you to think more carefully on how you can run your event in a more sustainable manner. Not only will your green event have a lower carbon footprint, but it will also allow you to think more creatively and innovatively about the event you are organising!

For the Edinburgh Fringe guide on running a sustainable show, click here.

Image Aviva Stadium, by Sylvain.

The post Running a Green Event: the Fringe Sustainable Practice Award Ceremony appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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