Sustainability
Follow the European Theatre Convention on our ambitious commitment to become a climate-neutral network by 2030.
2024
New Publication: An Applied Research Study for the Theatre Sector to Reach Net-Zero
Discover our latest publication, 'The ETC Theatre Green Book - Applied Research Study'!
In this publication, you will be able to explore case studies and research-based advice for European theatres to undergo a sustainable transformation of their productions, operations and buildings.
+ includes Sustainable Theatre policy recommendations.
Download the publication (members only)
July 2024
Public Launch of the 'ETC Theatre Green Book', Aiming at Guiding European Theatres Towards Net Zero
The new tool includes the first-ever self-certification for sustainability in theatre, empowering organisations of all sizes to track their progress towards net zero emissions across productions, operations and buildings.
ETC Theatre Green Book - Network Launch
Call for ETC Theatre Green Book Season 2024/25!
Following the network launch of the ETC Theatre Greenbook at the ETC International Conference Nova Gorica on Saturday 20 April 2024., we are proud to launch its call for interest for ETC members to be part of the ETC Theatre Green Book Season 2024/25!
The ETC Theatre Green Book is the international version of the renowned “Theatre Green Book” initiative. It is a step-by-step guide for European Theatres, developed by ETC and its members, to reach net zero emissions by 2030. It also includes a self-certification label, the ETC TGB label for theatres to make visible their green journey. As part of this initiative, ETC is now launching two new large-scale programme strands to support member theatres in their journey towards green sustainability.
If this sounds interesting to you and you don’t want to wait any longer in making sustainability a priority as part of your theatres’ leadership role, and to take on an ambassador’s role to promote the ETC TGB as shared process to measure sustainable progress across European theatres, you can choose to apply to the following two strands.
ETC Theatre Green Book - the Journey Begins!
In 2021, the ETC network agreed to a new Sustainable Action Code for Theatres. This included a radical commitment: to become a climate-neutral network by 2030.
But how do we get there?
The ETC Theatre Green Book (ETC TGB) is the collaboration between ETC, Renew Culture and the renowned ‘Theatre Green Book’ initiative. The Theatre Green Book is a tool to guide theatres step-by-step towards net-zero emissions – across their productions, buildings and operations.
In order to have a shared assessment tool to measure progress on sustainable transformation in theatres in Europe, the Theatre Green Book is currently being adapted to international and national theatre structures, with the help of many partners — including ETC — feeding into this development.
The new procedures set out in the ETC Theatre Green Book include a self-certification process to energise both the public and policymakers about how much progress has been made on sustainability in their organisations. Four classifications are available: Preliminary, Baseline, Intermediate, and Advanced (equivalent to net-zero).
The ETC Theatre Green Book is being trialled in the 2023/24 season by a ‘Focus Group’ of 10 ETC theatres, who aim to reach Baseline standard by summer 2024. Their real-time thoughts and reflections will be shared with the network, as an invaluable resource in ETC’s ongoing sustainability programme and in the work to become climate neutral theatres by 2030.
During Autumn 2023, ETC Members are invited to fast-forward their own sustainable journey by attending a series of hands-on webinars about the ETC Theatre Green Book. These are intended as an introduction to the main concepts and tools used to make productions, buildings and operations sustainable, and also as a chance to hear first-hand how these tools have benefitted ETC colleagues across Europe.
Follow the ETC Theatre Green Book journey and access additional news, recordings and resources here!
Read the working draft (members only)
Check out the webinars (members only)
Read the ETC Sustainable Action Code
Meet the ETC Green Theatre Committee
ETC Theatre Green Book Webinar #1 Recording
How to Use the Measurement Tool for Productions
In this webinar from 14 September 2023, Paddy Dillon and Lisa Burger from Renew Culture explain how to use the new measurement tool in the ETC Theatre Green Book to track the sustainability of theatre productions.
This hands-on walkthrough uses the recent production of 'Orgia', by Teatro Arriaga Antzokia, as a test case. It was produced to ETC Theatre Green Book baseline standards.
The webinar also includes a Q&A session with reflections on how to ensure 'buy-in' from theatre colleagues and local networks.
Watch the webinar here (ETC members only)
ETC Theatre Green Book Webinar #2 Recording
How to Do a Basic Home Survey of Your Building
This webinar recorded on 5 October 2023 is the second in a three-part series offering a hands-on introduction to the ETC Theatre Green Book.
In this webinar, Paddy Dillon and Lisa Burger from Renew Culture explain how to use the new measurement tool to do a basic home survey of your building.
The webinar also includes a Q&A session.
Watch the webinar here (ETC members only)
ETC Theatre Green Book Webinar #3: Recording
How to Form a Green Team and Get Started on Sustainable Operations
In this webinar, recorded on 31 October 2023, Paddy Dillon and Lisa Burger from Renew Culture explain how to set up a green committee and run operations sustainably in your theatre using the ETC Theatre Green Book.
Watch the webinar here (ETC Members only)
STAGES
STAGES Doughnut Workshop
The STAGES - Sustainable Theatre Alliance for a Green Environmental Shift project, a major experiment in theatre and sustainability, has released a new sustainable theatre tool: The STAGES Doughnut Workshop.
Over the course of 10-12 participatory workshops, the STAGES Doughnut Workshop guides a theatre's entire staff to dream up sustainable solutions - and then implement them - on topics such as local biodiversity, energy use, staff wellbeing, and diversity and accessibility. It is based on 'Doughnut Economics', the innovative approach to sustainability that combines both environmental and social concerns.
ETC and the Theatre Green Book Go to Brussels
As part of its commitment to greening the cultural sector, and in line with European Green Deal, the European Commission has invited ETC, Renew Culture, and members from the ETC Theatre Green Book Focus Group for an in-house workshop on 06 October to share learnings about ETC’s work with the Theatre Green Book.
These findings will feed into the next edition of the Theatre Green Book, currently developed with many partners around Europe and will help guide theatres step-by-step towards net-zero emissions across their productions, buildings, and operations.
The procedures set out in the ETC Theatre Green Book are being trialed this season by a ‘focus group’ of 10 ETC theatres across Europe, and the final, updated version of the Theatre Green Book will be released to the wider sector in Summer 2024. It will also include a self-certification process to energise the public – and policy makers – about how much progress has been made on making their organization sustainable. For ETC, this in-house workshop is a key milestone in its ambitious pledge to become a climate neutral network by 2030.
Discover the new ETC Theatre Green Book Production Calculator
The Theatre Green Book is split into three sections: Productions, Buildings, and Operations.
To help assess the sustainability of your productions, the tools includes a new, easy-to-use calculator tool to track the impact of your choices for sets, props, and costumes.
The excel document includes automatic calculations to work out whether the source and destination for your materials is sufficiently 'green' to qualify for the various levels of the ETC Theatre Green Book self-certification: baseline, intermediate, or advanced.
Download the Production Calculator spreadsheet
Watch the ETC Theatre Green Book Webinar explaning how to use the Production Calendar
All of these resources are currently for ETC Member Theatres only. Log in to access.
Video
ETC Theatre Green Book Focus Group - Video Introduction
"It's great for us to be part of the ETC Theatre Green Book Focus Group, because together we can share our learning, our successes, and also our failures, which are inevitable on the road to sustainability."
Watch the short video with members of the Focus Group explaining what they hope to achieve in the coming season!
Meet the Focus Group Theatres
Ten ETC theatres have set out to trial the ETC Theatre Green Book in their organisations, with the pledge to reach 'baseline' standard by summer 2024.
Together, they are known as the ETC Theatre Green Book Focus Group.
They are:
Young Vic (UK), Teatro Arriaga (Spain), Národní divadlo – National Theatre Prague (Czech Republic), Deutsches Theater Berlin (Germany); De Toneelmakerij (The Netherlands); Staatsschauspiel Dresden (Germany), Théâtre de Liège (Belgium), Het Zuidelijk Toneel (The Netherlands), Centre Cultural de Belem (Portugal), Det Norske Teatret (Norway)
Sustainable Action Code
A pledge to become a climate-neutral network by 2030
In 2021, the European Theatre Convention (ETC) network of theatres made a radical committment: to become a climate neutral network by 2030.
You can read ETC's groundbreaking 'Sustainable Action Code for European Theatres' in full, here.
Since then, ETC has launched a series of training courses for member theatres to become more confident with sustainability - in terms of communication, operations, and management.
The latest step is the ETC Theatre Green Book, a new tool with a leading organisation working on sustainability to drive the path towards climate neutrality through a new certification system. ETC is currently working with the European Commission on this.
European Policy
Sustainability a key feature in the 'Opole Recommendations'
The Opole Recommendations, the document pubished following the European Theatre Forum in May 2023 in Opole / Poland, includes a key focus on sustainability.
The text stresses: "It is essential to emphasize the role of networks to drive sustainable change, and to remember that not all organisations start from the same place, knowledge or political
context when working on the climate crisis."
The ETC Theatre Green Book was presented during ETF 2023. Following this, the recommendations on p14 include:
Develop the newly created European Green Theatre Certification, presented during the European Theatre Forum, as a tool to measure the impact of sustainable activity, track progress and ensure sector's accountability
Initiate a coordinated roll-out of the new tool on a sectoral, Member State and EU level
Include a requirement in EU grants for applicants to provide a plan for the circularity of materials used in theatre productions, thereby reducing waste to a minimum
Harmonise regulations across Europe so that historical buildings can be renovated for sustainable and inclusive purposes.
Read the Opole Recommendations in full
ETC is a member of STAGES, the International Sustainable Theatre Experiment
A group of leading theatres and academic organisations have embarked on an ambitious sustainability experiment in culture.
STAGES - Sustainable Theatre Alliance for a Green Environmental Shift, supported with 2 million Euros in co-funding from the European Union, will see 14 influential partners spend the next four years testing radical solutions to the biggest challenges posed by the climate crisis.
These include the carbon impact of international touring; Long- and short-term sustainable transformation: and dreaming of new creative processes.
The project comes as theatres urgently require new ways to become resilient and inclusive after two years of the pandemic and recognise the clear need to make up for lost time in implementing the 17 UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Read more
Useful links
Articles and Resources
Want to start your sustainability journey?
Article: Can Theatres Save the World from the Climate Crisis?
Article: Creating an Inclusive Digital Strategy with a Smaller Ecological Footprint
Article: Upcycling in Theatre, an interview with costume and set designer Reet Aus
Article: Is it Possible to Make an International Theatre Project with Zero Carbon Emissions?
Voices of Culture (VoC) Report: Culture and the UN Sustainable Development Goals
Ki Culture Sustainability Training Programme
The Ki Futures programme brings together resources and actions that empower institutions and individuals to bring about sector-wide change.
Ongoing sign-up
7 November 2022
ETC Conference in Lisbon Highlights Philosophical & Environmental Need for Care
European theatres must rethink how they interact with staff, local communities and the environment in order to ensure society remains united, theatre professionals have been told.
Leading directors across the continent gathered at the European Theatre Convention (ETC) International Theatre Conference in Lisbon to hear how care is essential in theatres and productions to help face global challenges of inequality and insecurity.
They also discussed the importance of 'slowing down', and ensuring care is present in laws and regulations for artist working conditions that support everyone - in all their diversity - to fulfil their creative visions.
"The theatre can be a flood," said Alexander Zeldin, the writer and director who delivered the keynote artistic address at the conference. "Its waters seep into cracks unseen in our world, it irrigates life by giving us a chance to see it afresh. The flood is what allows us to go with new eyes across borders and boundaries that are set up by shame, politics, history, and economics." Read more
January - June 2022
Fundamental Course - Sustainable Cultural Management for European Theatres
A joint initiative between European Theatre Convention and Mitos21, this course offers the fundamentals of sustainable cultural management and artistic creation processes.
Consisting of six sessions open to all Member Theatres, creative teams and individuals staff members across both networks, this course tackles the transition to create a greener, more environmentally conscious and mindful just future, considering the most recent sectoral developments around the world.
18 February 2022
ETC Urges Legislators to Take Steps Towards a Climate Neutral Theatre Sector
The European theatre community have made an unprecedented call for policymakers and politicians across the continent to make sweeping changes in support of a “resilient” theatre sector, fit for the future.
A new policy document has been released by the European Theatre Convention (ETC) network of theatres, which counts 42 theatres from 26 countries, urging Members of the European Parliament, the European Commission, and the Council of the European Union to support pioneering theatre “that is as diverse as our local communities.”
It adds that policymakers must take steps towards a climate-neutral and sustainable theatre sector” and continue to lead the way “towards accessible theatre in a post-Covid world.” Read more
24 September 2021
ETC Joins the International Climate Strike
ETC joined the climate strike in Berlin, the location of its head office at the Deutsches Theater, alongside an estimated 20,000 people – including young environmental campaigners Greta Thunberg and Luisa Neubauer.
1,400 such rallies are expected around the world ahead of the Cop26 climate summit, which many see as the last opportunity to limit temperature rises and collectively avoid climate ‘catastrophe’. Read more
15 June 2021
European Theatres Pledge to Go Climate Neutral by 2030
Major theatres in 25 European countries have made a promise to reduce their carbon emissions to at least zero by 2030 as part of a plan, coordinated by the European Theatre Convention (ETC), to create a “more sustainable, conscious, mindful and just future”.
Leading European Theatres have made an ambitious promise to completely eradicate their carbon emissions over the next decade.
The 46 theatres in the European Theatre Convention (ETC) network, drawn from 25 countries, have pledged to become climate neutral by 2030 – stressing that they will make changes to activity across their buildings and theatrical productions. Read more
11 June 2021
ETC Sustainable Action Code for Theatres
Creating now, a greener, more sustainable conscious and mindful just future by 2030.
We, theatres in Europe, are committed to measure, understand, reduce and offset our carbon footprint through information, mobilization and legislation on European level.
Theatres have the power to reach many people across society, to engage and initiate cultural debates. Creating a better and more equitable future is at the heart of our ‘recovery plan’ to overcome the Covid-19 crisis, providing resilience, all while reducing our impact on the climate crisis. We refer to the EU Green Deal and the Sustainability Goals of the United Nations to achieve a better and more sustainable sector by 2030.
ETC’s Sustainability Action Code for Theatres is the ambitious vision to create sustainable progress in Europe’s theatres by the end of this decade, aiming to reach a climate positive network and memberhip. It is based on the three basic pillars considering the social, economic and environmental transformation of our work for a more sustainable, diverse and just use of our resources, to create, present and share theatre made in Europe.
17 March 2021
ETC Green Theatre Committee Members Announced
This month, ETC held its first Green Theatre Committee meeting! The Committee members will develop strategic input for our next 3 year programme on social, economic and environmental sustainability, referring to the UN Sustainable Development Goals as targets to achieve by 2030 in theatres across Europe -- and as a show of sustainable progress.
Committee members:
Silvano Catufa, Technical and safety manager, Teatro Stabile di Torino (Italy)
Frank Holldack, Head of Design & Costume, Schauspielhaus Graz (Austria)
Joachim Klement, Artistic Director, Staatsschauspiel Dresden (Germany), ETC Board Delegate
Solenn Koç, Environmental Advisor, Théâtre de Liège (Belgium)
Michaela Rýgrová, Environmental Activities Coordinator, National Theatre Prague (Czech Republic)
Heidi Wiley, Executive Director, ETC.
Gunnar Will, Senior Energy Manager, & Juliane Becker, Project Manager, Adelphi, External Expert Consultants
12 February 2021
Launch of the ETC Green Theatre Committee
Following our last conference ‘Green Theatre’ in November, and the three workshops on green theatre practices in management, communication and biodiversity in December and January, we want to move to the action part in February.
The task of the committee is to develop and formulate a Sustainability Action Code for ETC Member Theatres to be presented at our next conference in June 2021. The code aims to - similar like the ‘Diversity in Action’ ETC code of conduct for ETC Member Theatres - serve as guideline for ETC’s network of Member Theatres to implement a sustainability strategy in each venue. The committee will meet from March to May in self-organised online meetings. It will be accompanied by ETC Board Member Joachim Klement (Staatschauspiel Dresden) and Heidi Wiley (ETC).
We want to act to make theatre continuously relevant, to be a sustainable public place in each community, to be a relevant art form to continuously stir and mirror societal debates, to imagine our future. We want to act to address environmental sustainability using the role of theatres to meet the objectives of the SDG’s and the European Green Deal, driving social innovation and contribute to the cultural shift needed for sustainable transformation of contemporary society. We want to act to create the sustainable transition of our sector.
Committee members will be announced soon.
21 January 2021
Wild Spaces: Action Areas for Sustainable Theatres
What strategic action can theatres take to become sustainable, and have an immediate impact on local biodiversity? This workshop was facilitated by ETC and NABU (Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union).
10 December 2020
Sustainable Cultural Management & Green Communication workshops
ETC was delighted to offer members the opportunity to participate in one of two parallel workshops on sustainable practices in cultural organisations. The sessions are facilitated by ETC and experts from Julie’s Bicycle.
Workshop 1: Introduction to Sustainable Cultural Management
Workshop 2: Introduction to Green Communication
25 November 2020
ETC International Theatre Conference, 'Green Theatre'
Climate change and environmental deterioration are existential threats to our future – this isn’t new. Nevertheless, almost all sectors, including the arts, are lagging behind on effectively implementing the sustainable development goals (SDG’s) as formulated by the UN years ago. What can theatres do to reduce their carbon footprints? Why and how do we need to act and change our ways of producing, working and travelling?
Speakers included:
Barbara Gessler, Head of Unit Creative Europe, Directorate General for Education and Culture, European Commission
Jörg-Andreas Krüger, President of NABU
Catriona Patterson, Transformation of Culture, Programme Lead at Creative Carbon Scotland
Dr Reet Aus, Fashion Designer and Environmental Activist
Vincent Baudriller and Caroline Barneaud, Director and Director of Artistic and International Projects, respectively, at Vidy-Lausanne Theatre
Annette Gerlach, ARTE journalist.
12 November 2020
European Theatre Forum
Day 2: Environmental Sustainability & the EU Cultural Policies / “Greening” the Theatre & Performing Arts Sector.
The second day of the Forum addressed the urgent topic of climate change and environmental sustainability and the role the sector can and must play towards a fair, green transition. Young voices were heard and their words led into two focussed sessions, looking at sustainability from the perspectives of policy making, science and culture, but also through the lens of good practice from the theatre and performing arts sector.
Speakers included:
Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Culture, Education and Youth
Alison Tickell, Director of Julie’s Bicycle
MEP Laurence Farreng (FR – Renew) & MEP Niklas Nienaß (DE - Greens)
Tara Runze & Dario Vecchi, Activists at Fridays for Future
Natalie Driemeyer, Dramaturg, Curator, WORLD-CLIMATE-THEATRE
Ben Twist, Director, Creative Carbon Scotland
Eva Johansone, Culture Journalist, Project Coordinator of Art. Climate. Transition, New Theatre Institute of Latvia
Watch the recorded session here.
