A huge thank you from the Creative Carbon Scotland team everyone involved for making The Green Arts Conference 2018 the best one yet! Catch-up on what happened.

Scotland’s arts & cultural sector came together this month to drive forward action for a better world. Over 150 people came together for the biggest ever – and sold-out – Green Arts Conference: Culture Change!

Catch-up on what happened

Write-ups from the plenary sessions and break-outs have been brought together in the Green Arts Conference: Culture Change report published today (Friday 8 November). This year we had an opening address from the Scottish Government, setting the context in which the sector is working, a first for the conference.

This year’s conference had a major theme of adaptation to the effects of climate change with sessions on the specific challenges from the impacts of climate change – such as flooding from more extreme rain – and where opportunities may lie for organisations to positively adapt.

Alongside showcasing projects from members of the Green Arts Initiative like WASPs studios encouraging cycling through providing showers and secure bike parking and Summerhall installing electric car charging points there were examples of organisations working with artists to explore environmental issues through their work.

This year the Green Arts Conference had over 150 participants including from outside of Scotland with representatives from the Irish Theatre Forum in Dublin and Siam Satire, the home of Ireland’s National Folk Theatre, based in Tralee on the west coast and Invisible Dust from London. They joined attendees from across Scotland including Comar from Mull, Pier Arts from Orkney, North Lands Creative from Lybster in Sutherland and Blueprint 100 from Dumfries and a video & twitter link-up with Atlas Arts from Portree on Skye.

A word on Lunch

The catering for any event is always an opportunity for event organisers to make a positive environmental choice, and reducing the amount of meat – especially red meat – and dairy is a great step. This year we took the decision of going for a fully vegan lunch at the conference, walking the walk and all that. We have to say that it’s not always easy working with a new supplier and asking them to try something different. On this occasion we felt the lunch was not as fantastic as you may have been expecting, but it was a learning experience for both us and the City of Edinburgh Methodist Church. We don’t aim to let this put us off, but we will be mindful that fully vegan catering for 150+ people still isn’t an everyday ask and we’ll work with suppliers in the future to get it right.

Stay in touch

If you’re part of a cultural organisation join the Green Arts Initiative so you’re first to know about next year’s conference and what’s happening throughout the year. We had a fantastic time with so many people coming together for The Green Arts Conference: Culture Change, one more big thanks to everyone who was part of it!

The post The biggest Green Arts Conference ever! – Read all about it appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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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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Culture has a key role in how society adapts to the unavoidable impacts of climate change so we’re thrilled that Cultural Adaptations is one of eight projects shortlisted for the NICE Award 2019!

A NICE award

The NICE award aims to promote innovations from the cultural and creative industries, especially those that spill over into the wider economy and society. Under the leadership of the european centre for creative economy (ecce) the Award for Innovations in Culture and Creativity in Europe (NICE) was initiated in 2013 at the UNESCO World Heritage Zeche Zollverein in Essen in collaboration with 15 cities, universities and institutions from 10 nations. It is financed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Innovation, Digitalization and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Innovative partnership

Cultural Adaptations brings together innovative cultural and adaptation organisations to explore culture’s role in society’s adaptation to climate change, and the adaptation issues that cultural organisations face. This co-operation project which has been in development since 2017, runs to March 2021, and is funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe programme.

We are leading the project with Sniffer and the Climate Ready Clyde Project as adaptation partners in Scotland, TILLT working with the City of Gothenburg in Sweden, Greentrack Gent and City of Gent in Belgium and Axis will be working with Codema, in Ireland.

NICE nominees

Cultural Adaptations was shortlisted out of 55 applications that were submitted for the NICE Award 2019 which is focused on the theme of “Internationalisation for a Better World”. Varied projects from Spain, Finland, Netherlands, Lithuania and Sweden were shortlisted alongside three from the UK. Shortlisted projects include “3D Printing Sustainable Buildings” a research project which demonstrates the potentials of additive manufacturing technology and robotics in the production of sustainable low-cost buildings that can be built with 100% natural materials. International artists, musicians, technologists and theorists join forces to understand how blockchains might enable a critical, sustainable and empowered culture in “DAOWO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation With Others)” another shortlisted project.

Next steps

Cultural Adaptations will be presented to the judges in Dortmund in February 2019. To keep informed about the Cultural Adaptations project, register your interest on the project page.

Cultural Adaptations (EUCAN) is co-funded with the support of the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.

The post Cultural Adaptations shortlisted for NICE 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

Powered by WPeMatico

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Creative Carbon Scotland’s Director Ben Twist has completed his PhD! In this blog he shares a summary of how complexity theory, cultural practice and sustainability work together.

At about the same time that Creative Carbon Scotland was formed I started work on a part-time PhD at the University of Edinburgh’s department of Sociology. Seven years later (it was very part-time!) I’ll be graduating in November. The subject of the PhD has both shaped and been shaped by the work of Creative Carbon Scotland, and I provide here a summary of Taking the Complexity Turn to Steer Carbon Reduction Policy: Applying practice theory, complexity theory and cultural practices to policies addressing climate change. (I can provide a version with references to anyone who wants one.) My practical research focused on increasing the sustainability of audience travel to His Majesty’s Theatre in Aberdeen and relates to the useful skills and attributes that cultural practitioners can bring to work on climate change, even in non-arts settings. 

The Scottish Government has a problem.  

The Scottish Government has committed to an 80% cut in CO2-e emissions from the 1990 baseline by 2050 (to be increased to at least 90% in the Climate Change Bill scheduled for 2019). A 37.6% cut had been achieved by 2015, but largely through decarbonisation of the electricity supply, which has involved dealing with relatively few large companies in a field where regulation is seen as acceptable. Most of this low hanging fruit has now been plucked and the next stage will be much harder as it will require changes in the way in which millions of individuals and small organisations travel and transport goods, heat and power their homes, buildings and appliances, and changes to individuals’ diets. The Government broadly follows a commonly held view that individual behaviour is none of its business, and so thinks it has very limited control over these smaller ‘agents’. What is it to do? 

Behaviour change 

Since 2009 the Government’s policy has focused on behaviour change to achieve this reduction in the carbon emissions of individuals, and it set up a useful research programme to explore how to go about it. This revealed that such behaviour change is in fact difficult to bring about and seldom achieves the degree of change that is required for this enormous social, cultural and economic transition. The research points to interventions being required at individual, societal and infrastructural levels as well as working in a coordinated way across sectors to avoid conflicting changes, and it raises the issue of ‘rebound’, where financial savings made by improving energy efficiency are ‘recycled’ by consumers into increased consumption, reducing or removing the desired carbon reductions. Behaviour change is more complex than it might seem. 

‘Behaviour change’ is in fact a term that was seldom used in sociological writing before the 1970s: until then, government in the UK was openly involved in organising social change. In the early 70s the post-war consensus between government, unions, companies and society broke down and a post-Keynesian economics focused on individuals and their choices – rational choice theory – leading to the concentration on the ‘rational actor’ approach to individual behaviour change. A feature of this approach that continues today, although it has been partly undermined by the financial crisis, is the view that government should get out of the way and intervene in individuals’ decision making as little as possible. 

Relying on the Rational Actor 

Rational choice theory sees the human being as a ‘rational actor’, capable of making a choice to act so as to maximise their personal benefit, and fundamentally self-interested, so making that maximisation of personal benefit the reason for all choices and behaviours (and the influence of economics on policy is so strong that this doesn’t apply just to the economic sphere but has spread to thinking about social fields). Thus people constantly weigh up the various options they have in any particular circumstances and choose the course of action expected to result in the highest net benefit or the lowest net cost. This model relies on the individual having good and complete information about the courses of action, and it makes no comment on the ‘preferences’ that the individual uses to evaluate the various benefits on offer. In an assumption with implications relating to concepts of sustainability it also assumes that the individual has endless, insatiable desire for benefit, for otherwise the whole model would fail to work when there was no longer any further maximisation of benefit that would lead to any behavioural choices.  

This focus on the rational choice theory of behaviour led to a host of theories about how to achieve behaviour change when governments wanted (most research was government led: government is of course quite a lot about influencing the activities of citizens). These include: 

• Improving the individual’s knowledge so they would make ‘better’ choices; 
• Widening the understanding of the personal benefit to include social, psychological and moral benefits, not just material ones; 
• Considering longer term rather than just immediate benefits to be gained from a choice. 

The problems with rational choice theory are however both legion and well documented (search for Motivating Sustainable Consumption by Professor Tim Jackson, for example) and to address these the theories of behaviour became ever more complicated to the point where they seemed impossible to apply in practice. The behaviour change theories suffered similarly and a core problem is that individuals lack ‘agency’ – the ability to make changes when their actions are influenced by a complex web of other factors and agents. Other people, material things, habit, commercial, financial and social pressures, the weather etc all combine to intervene between what someone might want to do (or think they want to do) and what they actually end up doing.  

Nudge 

In an attempt to overcome these problems whilst avoiding seeming to interfere in individuals’ choices, both the US and UK governments leapt upon ‘Nudge’, a rag-bag of techniques owing a great deal to the marketing world’s success in changing behaviours. Nudge accepts that individuals don’t make very good rational choosers: we are influenced by all sorts of things (including of course marketing). Nudge therefore applies various techniques to help us choose ‘better’, and to some extent it works practically. There are however ethical questions about this ‘choice architecture’, as people are being manipulated without their knowing, whilst laws and regulations do it openly, but moreover the focus on the individual and his/her behaviour is not enough, and this forms part of the problem of what I call ‘the sheer muddle of everyday life’.  

A personal example of this might help show why consistent behaviour change is so difficult to achieve. My decision to cycle, take the bus or drive to a performance at the theatre is influenced by many different factors. Who I am going with (my wife doesn’t cycle), who I am going to meet there (cycling gear won’t impress some people); the state of the roads/cycle lanes/traffic conditions (cycling feels dangerous in Edinburgh but is often faster than driving in heavy traffic); the cost, timing and convenience of the bus (does it go there, does it come back after the show, how long will I have to wait?); the cost of parking and fuel, the likelihood of having a drink after the show; the weather; the time the show starts (am I going to be rushed to get home from a meeting, eat and get there by bus?).  

All these factors vary from occasion to occasion and they are not all in my control: indeed, they are in the control of numerous different people and agencies. Whilst the various theories of behaviour can explain or predict my behaviour in certain circumstances and Nudging might influence my behaviour to some degree, it can’t actually address the issues that stop me cycling to the theatre. What is required rather than a focus on the individual is system-level analysis of the factors that lead me to behave in a particular way and, if we agree that intervention is necessary and acceptable, system-level intervention so that my individual desire to travel to the theatre in a sustainable way is not thwarted by any combination of frightening cycling conditions, discouraging social norms, expensive, inconvenient buses and cheap, convenient car parking. 

Practice Theory 

From early this century another approach to behaviours was taking shape. Practice Theory moves up a level from the individual to the social, considering that rather than individuals choosing to ‘behave’ in a particular way, ‘practices’ exist in society outwith the individual and individuals ‘perform’ or ‘enact’ them, constantly re-interpreting the practices in their performance of them and so strengthening and reinforcing them in a dynamic way.  

This is exemplified well by the practice of daily showering. When I grew up, daily showering was unheard of and indeed impossible: it is a function of everything from showers existing in people’s homes, a good source of hot water and warm bathrooms to a social expectation of frequent showering, even the existence of shower gel – a whole complex of technological, social, commercial and practical factors, some of which didn’t apply in the 1970s. Today no-one chooses to be a daily showerer, but the combination of all those factors makes it a very common practice in UK life. Daily showering therefore exists outside of the individual but many individuals perform it, changing and influencing the practice as they do so. A useful diagram from Elizabeth Shove’s influential paper helps here: 

Figure 1: Shove’s ‘Pinning Power Showering in Place’ (taken from Shove ‘Converging Conventions of Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience’. Journal of Consumer Policy, 2003 (26), pp395-418

Practice Theory has influenced the Scottish Government’s approach to behaviour change, whilst not quite removing from it the focus on the individual: the Government promotes the Individual, Social and Material (or ISM) Model, which asks users to think about all the different factors in the different areas that might lead to individuals’ ‘behaviours’ to consider how to change them. And Practice Theory has a great deal to offer – I find it a compelling description of how people come to do the things they do in the way they do. While it is good, however, at describing how practices come about, the ways in which they change and how they die out, it is almost totally silent on how to deliberately change existing practices or create new ones. Indeed some of the main proponents of Practice Theory in the UK argue that seeking to bring about a transition is fundamentally problematic as it perhaps wrongly assumes that there is an agreed state to transition to. I understand their concerns but argue that since the democratically elected Scottish Parliament unanimously passed the Climate Change Act including its targets in 2009, we do have an agreed endpoint we want to reach, and the discussion is more about how we achieve those carbon reductions. 

Complexity Theory 

Complexity theory, which derives from the natural sciences and mathematics, is often expressed in language similar to that used to describe practice theory, and it may offer a solution to this problem of how to apply practice theory practically, as it were. In very brief terms, complexity theory holds that complex systems – as distinct from merely complicated ones – are open systems consisting of many elements or agents which interact dynamically between themselves and indeed with influences outside the system. These interactions are rich, in that one agent may influence and be influenced by many others. They are non-linear, in that small changes can have large effects or vice versa. This non-linearity is an essential condition of complexity and means that the system cannot be collapsed into a smaller equivalent system. For the most part, interactions are likely to be at fairly short range, although the ramifications of an interaction can be felt at greater distances as subsequent interactions are triggered in other agents. However, this means that the influence of one agent may be altered, increased or diminished by further interactions along the chain. There are therefore feedback loops, both positive and negative, as interactions lead to changes that bring about further interactions to multiply or cancel out the effect of the first. 

As a result of the feedbacks, the interactions and their non-linearity, complex systems are not in equilibrium – a particularly important change from a view of science, economics and other disciplines that have traditionally assumed a tendency towards stability and equilibrium. Complex systems have a history: not only do they develop and change over time, but their present and future are determined by their past. Crucially for this discussion, complex systems have ‘emergent properties’: properties of the whole system, not individual elements therein, which cannot be foreseen just by looking at the individual parts.  

Complexity theory is usually applied to the natural world and physics, but there is a growing view that it can be used to describe complex social systems, in that phenomena seen in society can be understood as emergent properties of the complex social system that is society. Thus traffic congestion can be seen as an emergent property of a system in which car driving seems cheap and convenient, public transport is unfashionable, expensive or inconvenient, road systems are designed for outmoded traffic patterns and utility companies have a disconnected approach to planning roadworks.   

I argued that practices – the result of a complex combination of technological, social, historical and other factors – could usefully be seen as emergent properties of complex social systems. To change the practice it would therefore be necessary to focus not on the individual, nor on the practice itself, but on the complex system from which it emerged. But this raised the question, is it possible to deliberately act upon a complex social system in order to bring about such a change? 

TheatreBus 

In order to test this I decided to employ a case study to influence how audiences travel to attend His Majesty’s Theatre, a large theatre in Aberdeen, audience travel being a significant but largely unmeasured source of carbon emissions for the cultural sector. Through audience surveys and focus groups I discovered that although a high 70% of people travelled to the theatre by car, for many driving was the least inconvenient mode of transport rather than something they wished to do, emergent properties of the system such as lack of safety on the Aberdeen streets and mistiming of transport services and theatre performances putting them off taking the bus or train.  

Figure 2: Twist’s ‘Pinning car travel in place’, 2018

A ‘behaviour change’ approach to this problem would have focused on the individuals, seeking to change the motivation to drive through increased information, financial or other incentives to use public transport etc. A complexity approach led me to bring together three organisations that had agency to influence elements of the complex social system within which this practice of audience travel took place: the theatre management; Stagecoach, which runs the buses from Aberdeen to destinations in Aberdeenshire; and Aberdeenshire Council. Using His Majesty’s knowledge from their box office data of when and to where people would be travelling, the bus company’s knowledge about bus travel and their resource of buses, drivers etc, and Aberdeenshire’s strategic role to promote sustainable travel and its ability to secure funding for the project, we ran TheatreBus, providing services to popular destinations from right outside the theatre, guaranteed to leave at a time matched with the performance end.

Working on the project revealed time and time again characteristics of complex systems, some of which helped and others hindered the project’s implementation, confirming the importance of complexity in considering such projects. This has implications for how future interventions are planned and evaluated. It also highlighted that skills that I had developed as a theatre director and producer were essential to managing an intervention in a complex social system: we in the arts are comfortable with complexity – we even seek it out! 

Figure 3: A simplified map of the complex system within which audience members travel to His Majesty’s

This last point was informed by our interest at Creative Carbon Scotland in the work of the ‘civic artist’ Frances Whitehead and her Embedded Artist Project and has encouraged our own work on Embedded Artist Projects (we’re now involved in at least three relevant projects), development of the Library of Creative Sustainability, and our Creative Europe project Cultural Adaptations, so the research has already led to practical outputs and ‘impact’, as the academic funders like to see! 

Although TheatreBus was a great success with those who used it we didn’t manage to change that many people’s travel practices: all involved thought that this would have happened but needed a much longer experiment. We did however manage to change the system in which travel took place. His Majesty’s, which hadn’t previously considered itself to be part of the transport planning system, recognised that, as the trigger for around 1m journeys per year and holding unique information about those travelling, it had a vital role to play. Stagecoach and Aberdeenshire similarly reconsidered their omission of travel-triggerers from their lists of partners to work with. Moreover, I learned a great deal about how to go about changing a complex social system, including the need for collaborative and partnership working to achieve this, and some lessons this has for policymakers seeking ‘behaviour change’. Perverse incentives within policy around climate change encourage Public Bodies (such as local authorities, health trusts, higher and further education institutions etc) to focus on their own direct carbon emissions rather than emissions that they may not control but over which they have influence. Collaborative working is essential to address these emergent properties of the systems in which Public Bodies play a major role. 

Conclusions 

My evaluation of the TheatreBus project pointed to the need to consider complexity in the design, implementation and assessment of interventions in complex social systems. Collaborative working is hindered by some aspects of current policy and requires particular skills, including the willingness and ability to manage complexity. As I noted above, many cultural practitioners are trained and experienced in handling complexity and might well be useful project managers for this sort of collaboration, but wouldn’t normally be considered for these roles. Perhaps they should be added to the list. 

My thesis concludes with the following main recommendations for policymakers: 

1. Since all interventions seeking to achieve changes in individual ‘behaviours’ will take place within the complex social system that is society, policy and policy making should fully acknowledge the implications of complexity theory. 

1. Policymakers and those implementing it could therefore benefit from learning about complexity theory in higher education and continuing professional development. 

1. Results of interventions in complex social systems have long lead-times and cannot be exactly replicated in other circumstances, no matter how similar. The assessment of success may therefore need to be different and the range of acceptable evidence widened. 

1. Accordingly, methods of evaluating complex interventions in complex system need to be more widely developed. 

1. Public Bodies are important agents in complex social systems. Refocusing the Public Bodies Duties in the Climate Change Act, shifting Public Bodies’ attention away from reducing their own direct emissions to addressing society’s overall ones, would help achieve the overall carbon emissions reductions. 

1. A strong Duty to Collaborate, able to encourage Public Bodies to divert resources to relevant projects and to over-ride other less important duties, should be considered to help the Public Bodies in this change. 

1. Collaborative projects to intervene in complex social systems require particular skills, qualities and backgrounds from project managers and these may be found in people from a wider range of unexpected areas, including for example the arts. 

This is a very brief summary of my research and I’d be happy to discuss it further with anyone who is interested. And if you want to read the full 82,000 words, just let me know! 

Thanks

Finally, I couldn’t have completed this project without the help of my collaborators at Stagecoach and Aberdeenshire Council and especially my supervisors Dr Claire Haggettand Professor Nick Prior,  and Andy Kite and Jane Spiers‎ from Aberdeen Performing Arts. Enormous thanks to them all.

The post Ben’s Strategy Blog: Complexity theory, cultural practices and carbon reduction policy   appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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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

Powered by WPeMatico

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

In July, Creative Carbon Scotland’s Green Arts Manager, Catriona Patterson, attended a research trip hosted by EUROCITIES, and located in Leeuwarden, Friesland in the Netherlands*. There to represent the sustainability work of Edinburgh’s Festivals, and learn most about city-level sustainability-and-culture initiatives, here is her summary of what she learnt.

An Ecologically Sustainable Capital of Culture

Leeuwarden-Friesland began its European Capital of Culture programme in January 2018 and is the host city-region until December this year, having applied and won the opportunity to host the title in 2013 through a competitive bid process. A Capital of Culture year is a European Union-designated initiative, running since 1985, that seeks to celebrate the diversity of the European cultural offering, and which often strengthens the strategic development of cultural in the chosen region. Glasgow was the European Capital of Culture in 1990: a moment which many Scottish arts organisations cite as being transformative to the city and to the cultural scene.

Capital of Culture programmes are not typically associated with having environmental sustainability as core focus of their work: with socio-cultural and economic generation (or regeneration) being a major motivator for most applying and successful cities. However, the ‘bid’ submitted by Leeuwarden-Friesland back in 2013 also included a significant environmental sustainability component, and it was exploring this which was the focus of my trip.

Recognising the link between physical environmental surrounds, and the ways of life that exist within them, ‘Nature and Culture’ is one of three key themes for the year’s programme (alongside ‘City and Countryside’ and ‘Community and Diversity’):

“Nature and Culture in Europe: biodiversity and geo-diversity are under threat. This affects cultural diversity, too. Culture and nature are living organisms that depend on the same ecosystem…we explore and celebrate the links between nature and culture, using culture as a way to draw attention to nature. Awareness of the landscape, of the environment, of the importance of water and water technology, for example, are preconditions for a sustainable future and learning how to live with nature after centuries of battling it. Throughout this theme we focus on Europe-wide locations where the future of natural heritage hangs in the balance”

Leeuwarden-Ljouwert’s application for European Capital of Culture 2018 (‘Bid Book’).

Leeuwarden, and the wider Friesland region, is already experiencing changes to its culture as a result of wider environmental change. There are eleven cities in the region (of differing scales – Leeuwarden is the biggest with a population of 100,000), and in the past they have been annually united in a 120 mile-long ice-skating race, held on the canals which connect the settlements. However, a competition has not taken place since 1997, with the ice repeatedly failing to form sufficiently due to warmer average temperatures. With climate change predictions pointing towards ever-increasing temperatures and milder winters, this warming trend is likely here to stay. However, Frisians are overcoming these challenges and their changing relationship to water in a variety of ways – from conducting the race by bike (or by boat!), to the 11Fountains project in their European Capital of Culture year (11 international visual art commissions with water conservation a key part of their designs).

Programming Biodiversity

Biodiversity, and the unique landscape, flora and fauna of the Friesland region was prominent in several of the events and exhibitions featured as part of the research itinerary.

When browsing the main programme of Leeuwarden-Friesland’s City of Culture programme, it’s not unusual to see other projects focused on farm life and creativity,  However, a particular highlight is the Silence of the Bees project, which combines arts-science collaboration, school engagement, insect data, construction, composition and performance in Europe’s largest herb garden.

The Great Black-Tailed Godwit Theatre, based in the glass courtyard of the Frisian Nature Museum, goes a step further. The immersive and sensory exhibition (narrated quite flippantly by the eponymous bird) encourages audiences to see, hear, touch and experience the Frisian landscape from its perspective. It’s a powerful realisation of the concept of ‘putting yourself in another’s shoes’ and an interactive lesson in how a landscape drained and changed for human needs has implications for other species.

Fostering and Demonstrating Innovation

“Innovation in context” and ‘Mienskip’ (the Frisian word which encapsulates ‘[open] community’ and conveys open-minded, grass-roots, action-led spirit) characterise the approach taken to much of the European Capital of Culture programme. In talking to organisers, curators and participants, it seemed that many considered the City of Culture year as an opportunity to try new things, and to create new and exciting opportunities for the region!

InnoFest is a project that exists to capitalise on the microcosmic-city examples created by pop-up festivals and events, providing start-ups and entrepreneurs the opportunity to test new ideas: both those practical and behind-the-scenes (like smart-grid power) and those more public facing (like sustainable cardboard tents). At the ‘Welcome to the Village’ Festival, such innovations were in abundance – and the insect micro-protein fries were delicious!

Organisers are also more explicitly addressing sustainability in the ‘Fossil Free Friesland’initiative, through which they are hosting large-scale public events, such as a two-week period where every Frisian citizen was encouraged to travel by no-carbon means, and a showcase of low-carbon vehicles . By their own admission, such a proposal was much more radical at the time of the bid submission (five years is a long time in the sustainability movement), but it is a still a powerful act: even directly linking cultural pursuits and sustainability ambitions is still relatively unusual.

Future Sustainable, Cultural Cities

However, I’m hopeful that this may not be the case for much longer. There are increasing pressures – locally, nationally, at a European and at an international level – for cities and cultural organisations to adopt more sustainable practices, and to demonstrate how their strategic plans can create social, economic, environmental and cultural prosperity to their region. Future European Capitals of Culture will surely seek emulate and exceed what Leeuwarden-Friesland has achieved.

In taking inspiration from their tangible and intangible heritage, combining current trend and new innovations, and making it relevant and specific to their unique local context, I think Leeuwarden-Friesland is an exciting example of a European Capital of Culture taking on the challenge of sustainability. Perhaps there could be a European Green Capital bid in the offing?!

*Keen to stay true to principles of low-carbon travel, Catriona travelled entirely by train from Edinburgh! She took the Caledonian Sleeper to London, Eurostar to Rotterdam and Intercity train to Leeuwarden, leaving at midnight and arriving around 3.30pm. You can plan your own sustainable travel to Europe (and further afield!) using websites like www.seat61.com/, www.loco2.com/ and www.rome2rio.com/.

The post Visiting Leeuwarden-Friesland: a Sustainable European Capital of Culture appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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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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Creative Carbon Scotland is seeking two individuals to undertake formative and summative evaluation of the Creative Europe ‘Cultural Adaptations’ project (2018-2021).

Cultural Adaptations

Cultural Adaptations (EUCAN) is a ‘small co-operation project’ supported by the Creative Europe programme of the EU. It is led by CCS and involves three partner cultural organisations: TILLT in Gothenburg, Sweden; Greentrack Gent in Ghent, Belgium; and Axis Ballymun (Dublin) in Ireland.

Each partner will work with a local organisation focused on climate change adaptation to develop adaptation strategies for cultural SMEs and to run a joint project in which an artist will be placed within a non-cultural adaptation project in order to explore how their different ways of thinking and working can help contribute to addressing knotty adaptation-related problems. All this activity is effectively a piece of action research leading to the development of a resource to encourage future similar activity by more cultural and adaptation organisations. A detailed project description is included in the tender document.

Seeking Two Evaluators

Evaluation Objectives

The aim of the evaluation is to draw out learning from the different pilot projects in the four countries in order to:

1. Learn from the first projects to improve the later ones
2. Compare the different pilots in the different settings, led by different organisations addressing different issues, to understand the common factors, the differences between and the strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches
3. Help steer the overall project to ensure that the work done is relevant and useful to both cultural and adaptation actors
4. Build a body of knowledge to inform the Toolkit and Resource
5. Provide the basis for a methodology to evaluate future projects

For full details of the tender, and more information, please download the tender document. 

Budget

The budget available for the research described above is £8,200 for each researcher. Creative Carbon Scotland is not VAT registered so this total should include VAT. Travel to meetings and travel to, accommodation at, and subsistence costs for Transnational Meetings will be paid in addition to this sum.

How to Apply

Proposals are invited from suitably qualified and experienced researchers to undertake one or both of the areas of research. Linked proposals would be welcomed.

Deadline

Proposals should be sent to Ben Twist, Director of Creative Carbon Scotland, at ben.twist@creativecarbonscotland.com and copied to Catriona Patterson at EUCAN@creativecarbonscotland.com, by 5pm on Friday 2 November and should include the following information:

• An indication of which area you wish to evaluate (culture or sustainability – or both if appropriate)
• A CV demonstrating appropriate experience
• An outline of your proposed methodology
• A price for the work

Questions

If you have any questions about the project or the role(s), please get in touch with Ben.Twist@creativecarbonscotland.com 

Cultural Adaptations (EUCAN) is co-funded with the support of the Creative Europe programme of the European Union. Find out more about the project.

The post ‘Cultural Adaptations’ Project Seeks Two Evaluators 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

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Contemporary artist and researcher Sonia Mehra Chawla writes about the research she undertook in Aberdeen in June 2018 to inform an upcoming residency with Edinburgh Printmakers.

India’s struggle with climate change and the battle to balance economy, energy and environment

On the frontline of climate change

India’s climate is warming up at a very fast rate.  Already one of the most disaster-prone nations in the world, India is at the frontline of nations expected to be worst affected by the adverse effects of climate change.

India will soon become the most overpopulated country in the world. Lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty remains the priority of India’s policy. In addition, the country is embarking on one of the fastest rural-to-urban transitions in human history, and as infrastructure develops, energy demands will escalate intensely in the years to come. At the same time, there are still critical gaps in the provision of water and energy infrastructure, housing, sanitation, safety and jobs.

The impacts of climate change and environmental degradation are already deeply and acutely felt in the country. Unchecked global warming will hit India hard, intensifying extreme weather conditions, extreme heat waves, and the floods that claim thousands of lives every year, and brutally affecting the monsoon upon which Indian farmers depend. The vulnerable and poor communities of India are worst affected.

The rising Agrarian crisis in India is a broad and complex phenomenon linked to inefficient government policies and management. Suicides of nearly 60,000 Indian farmers can be linked to climate change as crops fail. According to experts, future climate change will negatively affect crop production, increasing the risk of food insecurity for vulnerable communities and the poor.

There are still severe issues in the country related to water and air pollution, management of plastic and solid waste, felling of trees and rampant deforestation at alarming rates, along with unabated and unrestricted ground water extraction and over-exploitation. India’s rivers are dying, and the National Green Tribunal is flooded with cases related to the cleansing and rejuvenation of important rivers Yamuna and Ganges.

The challenge India faces is to come up with dynamic measures to cut the nation’s high carbon footprint, while not endangering its economic growth prospects. India’s energy sector is a substantial contributing factor. India relies on coal for over 60 percent of its total electricity generation, and fossil fuel remains an important element in the country’s energy strategy. India is the third largest carbon polluter in the world, and emissions are likely to double as its economy grows and develops. The country therefore, needs to ensure that it generates as much of that energy as possible from renewable sources. This would be crucial to limiting catastrophic global temperature rise.

The crucial question- How can India bridge the challenges of development and climate change mitigation?

To diversify its energy mix and reduce its reliance on coal, the Indian government has been actively promoting renewable power sources and advancing strategies, and ambitious targets have been set. India is emerging as a key player in the global renewables market. There are signs of hope driven by astounding drops in the prices of renewable energy in the past few years. In fact, last year, renewable energy became more cost competitive than conventional power.

The last two years will be remembered as a watershed period in the history of energy sector reforms in India. India is running one of the largest and most ambitious renewable capacity expansion programs in the world. The goal for India is to ultimately source forty percent of its electricity from renewables and other low-carbon sources by 2030.

The Indian solar sector has massive potential. One of the world’s largest solar power park is located in the Kamuthi, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Spread over 10 sq. km, it consists of 2.5m solar panels, and is estimated to make enough power for 750,000 people.

The Solar Energy sector has got more than half of the funds allocated for centrally sponsored renewable energy schemes and projects in the 2018-19 Budget. However, it is clear that there is a temporary loss of momentum in this area, and future targets will not be met if efforts are not accelerated. According to Mercom India, ‘the new budget for the coming financial year has, in most parts, turned out to be disappointing for the renewable energy sector. To the industry’s dismay, no specific incentives, subsidies or grants were announced for the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).’

In spite of these hurdles, what is clear, is that renewable energy in India has a bright future ahead of it. Short term obstacles and challenges still remain for the growing green energy sector, which needs improved and enhanced frameworks, and the government’s continued and unfailing commitment. On a positive note, the Indian state of Karnataka recently became the leading Indian state in green power, overtaking leading nations like Denmark and Netherlands. What made this possible was record low bids for renewables’ tenders and policy support from the State Government.

Grave economic issues make measures to reduce emissions extremely complex, and the path India takes is likely to be paved with harsh challenges, and, in spite of several compelling reasons for India to follow a green path into the future, severe hurdles remain.

Details from Sonia Mehra Chawla’s work ‘(Under) Currents & Crosswinds’. (2018) Project collaboration & support: Khoj International Artists’ Association + Wellcome Trust UK/ DBT India Alliance. (Department of Biotechnology, Government of India). Image credit: Sonia Mehra Chawla.

The artistic project at Edinburgh Printmakers (2018-2020)

I was invited to undertake the research arm of an artistic project with Edinburgh Printmakers in Aberdeen in June 2018. This research will inform an intensive print residency at Edinburgh Printmakers in spring 2019, and the outputs from this residency will be presented as part of a solo exhibition at Edinburgh Printmakers beautiful new home at Castle Mill in 2020.

Edinburgh Printmakers will transform the former North British Rubber Company HQ- Castle Mills, into a vibrant new creative hub opening to the public in 2019.

Choosing focus areas

I hope this artistic project will serve as a platform and starting point for dialogue and conversations around some of the significant and pressing issues of our time such as the future of energy, the future of our oceans and marine life, society’s dependence on fossil fuels, just transitions, the global challenges of energy transitions, carbon reduction goals, as well as the human dimension of crisis.

National Green Tribunal Act, 2010, is an Act of the Parliament of India which enables creation of a special tribunal to handle the expeditious disposal of the cases pertaining to environmental issues. It draws inspiration from the India’s constitutional provision of Article 21, which assures the citizens of India the right to a healthy environment.

Ministry of New and Renewable Energy or MNRE is a ministry of the Government of India. The Ministry is mainly responsible for research and development, intellectual property protection, and international cooperation, promotion, and coordination in renewable energy sources such as wind power, small hydro, biogas, and solar power. The broad aim of the ministry is to develop and deploy new and renewable energy for supplementing the energy requirements of India.

End of Part II

Sonia Mehra Chawla is a contemporary Indian artist and researcher. She completed a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from College of Art, New Delhi in 2004-05. Her artistic practice explores notions of selfhood, nature, ecology, sustainability and conservation. Sonia works in a variety of media including photography, printmaking, drawing, painting and video.

Sonia is a British Council India & Charles Wallace India Trust (CWIT) scholar, and was invited to the United Kingdom in 2014 for a research based project in printmaking. She is currently the recipient of an International ‘Art+Science’ Grant Award, instituted by Khoj International Artists’ Association India & the Wellcome Trust UK/DBT Alliance for 2017-18. She has recently been awarded a Fellowship from the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Germany for the Art, Science and Business Program for 2019-20. Sonia’s works have been exhibited at the Institut Fur Auslansbeziehungen, Germany (Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, IFA), Tate Modern, London, Essl Museum of Contemporary Art, Austria, Museum of Contemporary Art, Yinchuan, China, Goethe Institut, Mumbai, India, CSMVS Museum, Mumbai, India, ET4U Contemporary Visual Art Projects, Denmark, and Today Art Museum, Beijing, China.

The artist lives and works in New Delhi, India.

____________________________

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for conversations and interactions with Dr. Prof. M S Swaminathan, Prof. Colin Moffat, Dr. Leslie Mabon Sass, Alison Stuart, Erik Dalhuijsen, Nicola Gordon, Dr. James Howie, Gemma Laurence and Dr V.Selvam.

I am grateful to Edinburgh Printmakers. I extend my warmest thanks to Sarah Manning Shaw, Alastair Clark, Judith Liddle, and the brilliant team of Edinburgh Printmakers for their unfailing support, and look forward to a significant and meaningful collaboration over the next two years.

Further reading and information:

The artists’ official website: http://soniamehrachawla.in/

Edinburgh Printmakers: https://www.edinburghprintmakers.co.uk/

On Turning Toward: ‘Critical Membrane’ by Sonia Mehra Chawla, Heather Davis looks at the work of Sonia Mehra Chawla, as part of her look into Four Figures of Climate Change, July 2017

http://theo-westenberger.tumblr.com/post/162458052219/on-turning-toward-critical-membrane-by-sonia

Down To Earth, https://www.downtoearth.org.in/

‘The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable’, Amitav Ghosh. Published by Penquin India.

‘Everybody Loves a Good Drought’, P.Sainath. Published by Penquin India.

‘Ecology without nature: rethinking environmental aesthetics’, Timothy Morton. Published by Harvard University Press.

‘Soil, Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an age of Climate Crisis’, Vandana Shiva. Published by Penguin Random House.

‘From Green to Evergreen Revolution: Indian Agriculture, Performance & Challenges’, Prof. M S Swaminathan. Published by Academic Foundation.

‘In Search of Biohappiness: Biodiversity and food, Health and Livelihood security’, Prof. M S Swaminathan. Published by World Scientific.

‘Oil Strike North Sea’, Mike Shepherd. Published by Luath Press.

‘The Klondykers’, Bill Mackie. Published by Birlinn, Edinburgh (2006)

‘Old Torry and Aberdeen Harbour’, Rosie Nicol & Particia Newman. Published by Stenlake Publishing Ltd, UK.

Contact:

soniamehrachawla.in

soniamehrachawla@gmail.com

admin@edinburghprintmakers.co.uk

The post Guest Blog: Thoughts on a nation in flux (part 2) 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