Projects Manager

Arcola Recieves Green Tourism Gold Award

Arcola Theatre is delighted to announce that it has achieved Green Tourism Award Gold standard. Sustainability Projects Manager, Rachel Carless, and the rest of the sustainability team worked hard to fulfil the rigorous set of criteria set out by the Green Tourism Business Scheme (GTBS), who came to carry out an audit at the end of April. Arcola is now the first theatre in the UK to achieve a Gold award in Green Tourism and is proud to be recognised as ‘a strong local catalyst in greening North East London (Hackney and surrounding districts)’.

The GTBS, developed by the International Centre for Responsible Tourism and validated by Visit Britain, is the largest of its type in the world, and since 1997 has worked to make tourism and the hospitality industry in the UK more sustainable. The audit covers areas such as energy efficiency, waste minimisation and recycling, use of local produce, and support of public transport, its overall aim to encourage sustainability in business and provide the consumer with a ‘green’ choice.

Attempting to improve on the Bronze Award, received in 2008, the sustainability team had a number of issues to address including improving links with other GTBS members (e.g. Arts Admin), developing better systems for measuring the theatre’s energy use, and sourcing greener cleaning products. In the GTBS’ audit report, special mention was given to Arcola’s success in communicating the green message, in particular through the Green Sundays events and the green notice board up in the café/bar. Reaching the GTBS’ Gold standard is recognition of Arcola Theatre’s ongoing commitment to sustainability and its goal of becoming the world’s first carbon-neutral theatre.

The Green Tourism audit report can be viewed here.

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Arcola’s Winning Streak

Arcola Recognized as Green Community Hero

On Nov. 25, Arcola proudly accepted the award of Most Innovative Project at the Green Communities conference in Liverpool. Green Communities is an intiative from the Energy Saving Trust that supports, facilitates and promotes community based energy projects. They are a great resource for any group interested in pursuing sustainability.
For more information on the awards click here .
If you have a community group and would like to join Green Communities, sign up here.

Arcola Wins Archant London Environmental Award 2009

Rachel Carless, Sustainability Projects Manager and Lisa Woynarski, Sustainability Intern, accept award from Penney Poyzer.

Arcola Theatre was awarded Best Environmental Business of the Year (Small to Medium) at this year’s Archant London Environmental awards. The awards ceremony, held on 20th November, was hosted by TV presenter, Penney Poyzer (of BBC’s “No Waste like Home”).  Boris Johnson, Mayor of London praised the awards in a statement read in his absence, saying “We have to take bold steps to improve our environment and combat climate change, so I urge you all to continue with your exceptional endeavours so we can really make a difference.”
Click here to find out more about the awards and the other winners.
You can also read the Hackney Gazette article here.

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Future Arcola kicks off!

Monday 16 November 2009 was a date to remember : the first official kick-off meeting for the Future Arcola theatre was held, appropriately, in the current Arcola bar!

After two years of meetings and relationship building on all fronts, the show is finally on the road… and now we have three weeks to present our plans for taking the project to RIBA stage B, i.e. feasibility design stage. A presentation on Future Arcola is going to be made at City Hall on December 15th.

I am working with fellow Sustainability Consultant Mariane Jang, and Arcola’s Sustainability  Projects Manager Rachel Carless, to develop a robust Sustainability Appraisal Framework (SAF) that will provide the performance framework for managing the sustainability of the project.

As part of the SAF we will:

  • Crystallise the sustainability vision for Future Arcola
  • Set sustainability objectives (covering environment and natural resource issues, social responsibility and economic viability and regeneration)
  • Derive robust key performance indicators to measure sustainability performance against objectives
  • Compare different scoring mechanisms (LEED, BREEAM etc) as well as the WWF One Planet Living principles and reviewing their relevance for Future Arcola
  • Undertake stakeholder engagement with the Arcola team, Mouchel (project management), Arup Associates (architecture), Arup (theatre consulting, structural engineering), Hackney Borough Council, the London Development Agency (LDA), BioRegional and beyond

Arcola has proved itself to be a groundbreaking theatre, not only showcasing world-class productions but also leading the way in engaging with the public through the Arcola Energy incubator, Arcola Youth & Community programmes and Green Sundays. The next step in the sustainability story will be to set some challenging targets so that Future Arcola can realistically hope to be the most sustainable theatre in the world.

Congratulations to Leyla, Mehmet and Ben for all their hard work to get us to the starting blocks.

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Green Sundays at Arcola: 3 May, all welcome!

Come and join us anytime between 3pm and 7pm for May’s Green Sunday at Arcola Theatre.

It’s free to attend and everyone is welcome. This month we are looking at urban regeneration – from the Olympics to roof gardens. With special film screenings, lively debate, Kabula dancing and the chance to picnic near the Olympic site, it’s not to be missed!

arcola-green-sun-030509


Anna Beech
Sustainability Projects Manager
Arcola Theatre
27 Arcola Street
London E8 2DJ

anna@arcolatheatre.com
www.arcolatheatre.com
www.arcolaenergy.com
www.greensundays.org.uk