Environmental Sustainability

We are aware that through our activities, we influence the environment and contribute to climate change, and we believe that we have a responsibility to work to reduce this impact and minimise our contribution.

There are significant challenges for us in addressing these issues which will require us to tackle our patterns of creativity, consumption, and travel; however, we will continually seek ways to take positive action.

Our Ambition

Our ambition is to become leaders in our community for advancing environmental sustainability.
We aim to achieve our ambition by:

• Being lean (use less), being clean (service systems), and being green (renewables)
• Making ‘working sustainably’ at the heart of our planning for everything we do
• Managing and reviewing our emissions (direct and indirect)
• Measuring outcomes, recording results, and sharing best practise and lessons learnt with our peer group

In 2022-23 we have:

• Developed and embedded our environmental policy and action plan and created an organisation wide team of ‘Green Champions’
• Enabled our teams to undertake a programme of training and development working with specialist consultants, leading artists and thinkers to enable everyone to be more sustainable – namely the ‘Carbon Literacy Training’ carried-out in April ‘24
• Curated a programming plan that includes work dedicated to environmental issues highlighting climate change to visual arts installations and high-level discussions with key protagonists
• Ran a programme of staff development sessions/days to help shape our ambitions and embedded environmental training into our talent development programme 
• Reviewed and aligned our plan with University of Warwick targets, establishing a baseline and implementing measures to monitor progress towards UoW’s 2030 net-zero emissions
• Saved approx. 390,000kWh and 79tCO2e by reporting and resolving issues or shortening heating/cooling schedules.
  • The electricity saved is equivalent to 42 average UK houses electricity for a year 
  • The gas and heat saved is equivalent to 24 average UK houses for a year 
  • Water saved is enough to provide 700 people with drinking water for a year
  • Total CO2 saved from all of them, is equivalent to 3,100 trees absorbing CO2 for a year, or 46 average petrol cars on the road for a year
• Introduced ‘Green Patrols’ – monthly walk arounds through the building as a means of capturing and delivering ‘quick wins’.

In 2024-2025, we will:

• Dynamically schedule the Mead Gallery heating system so the space isn’t heated when not in use, this will help us make an energy consumption saving of c. 55,000 kWh, and a carbon saving of 6.5tCO2e.
  • The electricity we will save is equivalent to 14 average UK houses electricity for a year
  • The heat we will save is equivalent to 1 average UK house for a year
  • Total CO2 we will save is equivalent to 264 trees absorbing CO2 for a year, or 4 average petrol cars on the road for a year
• Report waste, water and energy usage through Julie’s Bicycle IG tools – and use data to help highlight the successes of our energy-saving interventions
• Tender proposals for viable replacements to Butterworth Hall hot-water provision backstage
• Tender proposals for water-saving taps across the ‘Phase 1’ development of the foyer
• Create an ‘Environmental Sustainability for WAC’ digital infographic for public display across the foyer screens.