Julie's Bicycle Sustainable Touring Webinar
hello and welcome to this webinar on sustainable touring with Julie's bicycle my name is Becky Hazelwood I'm an environmental sustainability project manager at judie's bicycle um and I'm going to be running through some information on sustainable touring today um so I'm going to start off by talking a little bit about Julie's bicycle and our work uh we're going to cover the challenges and opportunities of international working and then go on to look at sustainable touring in a bit more detail what we actually mean by that some of the emerging models and best practice that we're seeing from um the international cultural sector and some case studies of inspiration so just to start off uh Julie's bicycle who are we we're are pioneering not for profit who are mobilizing the arts and culture to take action on the climate nature and Justice crisis we are a charity we were founded um back in 2007 um from within the UK music industry but we now work internationally um and that's with multiple Arts um art forms and sectors which includes museums and galleries um Heritage theaters music libraries and The Wider creative Industries since we were founded um we've pioneered new approaches and ideas and been a leading voice in environmental responsibility in the cultural Community we work at scale both nationally and internationally we're based in the UK um we've been using our expertise to support thousands of organizations to take climate action um in the last um 12 to 15 years so a little bit about what we focus on um we Pioneer new creative sector responses to the climate nature and Justice crisis um we have lots of examples of the kind of pioneering work that we've done um from formulating the first uh carbon footprint of the UK music industry um through to creating bespoke carbon calculators for the sector um and much much more we influence policy makers to connect cultural policy to environmental policy and model what this achieves in practice we do this um through our work with uh policy makers and through Global um campaigns we enable the sector to scale its response to the crisis using proven methodologies we're building an international network of skilled creative climate leaders who are equipped to make change in their communities and we want to consistently evidence the impact of our work and be able to communicate it widely showing um what can be achieved as well as learning from others and this is just a little bit about how we do it so um we work with the entire uh cultural ecosystem uh from through from Individual uh artists and Freelancers through two entire networks um of of creatives and communities um as mentioned we do a lot of training and skills at the webinar today is um one example of um one small example of how we build capacity within the cultural sector um we develop leadership within the sector uh we create a number of resources uh we have a resource Hub which um is absolutely ginormous and covers uh has podcasts webinars guides reports um loads of data that we have worked on um over the years and with the cultural sector uh we work in Partnership and we work on policy development so now onto touring um let's just talk about touring and working internationally so travel and touring are essential to creativity and to culture um but environmentally speaking they do come at cost uh the conventional models for touring tend to be high carbon um and and uh trying to visit as many different places as possible within the shortest amount of time but as the urgency of the climate crisis increases so does the need for our sector to fully understand its touring footprint and to sustain a means of sharing art which supports our transition to a low carbon future it's not an easy challenge so let's talk about what some of those issues and challenges and opportunities are um for international working in culture so just to begin with let's touch on why we work internationally in the first place it comes with loads of benefits um from building collaborations and Partnerships building profile and reputation of um artists and organizations enriching creative work through um that cultural Exchange can bring in more money um and widens the reach of um reaching more audiences uh this is a quote I'd like to share from the organization Lyft who are a festival based in London an International Festival based in London and I'm going to be sharing an example of their sustainable touring work um further on in the webinar today and but I think this quote really sums up very nicely um uh uh exactly why we work internationally and why it's really important uh to also consider sustainability in the way that we work um so internationalism is essential in a world where inequality racism and discrimination are more present than ever sharing art across borders can help to build much needed awareness empathy and cultural respect if we want to build a fair Society it's essential to present different viewpoints and experiences encourage expans conversations and come together for joyful shared experiences we believe that what we do bringing art and artists from around the world to London and connecting them to local artists and audiences is necessary this makes some travel necessary so we've made it a priority to discover how to tour how to tour work and share exciting important performances in the best way possible consider considering Equity equity alongside sustainability and um so that brings me really nicely on what I want to talk about next um which is how we can make international touring and working more environmentally sustainable not not just environmentally but also socially sustainable as well so when we think about more sustainable touring um I think it's really helpful to think about sustainable touring broadly in um these two different different ways so first of all you've got doing things better that's doing things better but in a more environmentally responsible way um so this is kind of tweaking around the edges it's um it's making some practical and important changes to um to practice but it's not really looking at kind of broader more radical um thinking around changing the touring system doing better things is about new ways of working and collaborating which are rooted in sustainability equity and inclusivity so it's looking at that bigger picture um and I'm going to explain uh exactly what I mean by this in the next few slides so conventional models of touring rely on air travel it's definitely the fastest and easiest and cheapest way um to tour work internationally um but having said that unfortunately um flying is one of the biggest uh impacts when it comes to touring as well um so globally Aviation accounts are about 2.5% of global CO2 emissions um and it's contributed about 4% of global warming to date 2.5% might not sound very much um but the problem with Aviation um is that there's no feasible uh routs to Net Zero for FL for Aviation it's also one of the sectors uh which demand is is increasing and increasing and increasing um and whilst there's lots of investigation and research happening into kind of more environmentally um efficient ways of of flying there's still no kind of technological solutions which are going to be viable um uh in a way that we can scale um in the way that we need to reach 1.5
degrees of warming um in line with 20 2050 um emissions goals um but flying is also um the emissions from flying are also produced from just a very small proportion of people worldwide so only 1% of the world's population emits 50% of CO2 from commercial Aviation 11% of people flew in 2018 and only 4% of people flew in nationally so flying is one of the most energy intense forms of consumption and one of the most inequitably distributed um so that's what I was just referencing about having no clear pathway zero Carbon on the time scale needed so the decisions that we make pre- tour um impact both sustainability and Justice out outcomes so some models that are designed to be sustainable in terms of emissions um might end up not not um on purpose but they might might end up excluding artists from the global south or it might mean not being able to take artwork to particular regions or continents for example um putting on a tour um in a small local only with local artists um so it's important to kind of ask these justi Le questions as well about the way that you design your tour so who gets to tour and why um whose voice is being heard through the the work that you're touring and whose work is being exhibited and who gets who gets to see it who's the audience and that's kind of questions about where you tore to is it just cities are you going to take the work more to rural areas um there's lots and lots of kind of Dimensions to consider um when we think about touring equity and inclusivity so that's just um a taster I guess so now kind of more on to the um practical side around emissions from touring and how you can um address those emissions um so where to get started basically so this image is called the climate hierarchy um and and you need to prioritize um the kind of the top of the triangle is where you can have the most impact and towards the bottom of the triangle is um where your actions have increasingly less impact in terms of um environmental emissions so to begin with um starting with measuring is a really really good place uh to understand and report your impacts and also to understand and um how how the impact of the different initiatives that you put in place um to measure your carbon footprint um year on year as you make changes to your touring models or your touring practice uh so avoiding emissions is by doing things differently um and that can mean changing business models by avoiding uh unnecessary travel so that could be for example doing all of your pre-production meetings online rather than traveling physically uh reducing emissions is um the third part of the hierarchy so that's about increasing um efficiency so that could be moving to um traveling with a more fuel efficient vehicle or via um train instead of car for example replac is about replacing high carbon energy sources with low energy low carbon energy sources so that might mean for example um at the venue you're performing at you switch to renewable energy renewable sources of energy um rather than um high energy uh high carbon energy sources then finally offsetting offsetting is a really complex um and controversial solution um and basically what we recommend is that you should try and focus first as much as possible on the top um those first four actions before you think about offsetting uh that's because some offsetting schemes don't have the impacts um that they that they say they do um it's quite quite difficult to prove uh and it's a it's a whole another subject by itself so I'm not going to go into detail in offsetting um but if you do want to read about more about off setting we have a guide on the Julie's bicycle resource Hub which goes into detail about the pros and cons um and different approaches that you can take so just uh to begin with I'm going to touch on measuring and the top of the the pyramid um top of the hierarchy so measuring is really important um for understanding your impacts and managing your organization for the future uh so you can't manage what you don't measure so um a few tips is to focus on priority areas so focus on measuring um those impacts which you think are the the biggest ones and the ones that you have the most influence over and so those are um your direct kind of big energy big energy consuming activities so for touring it it's likely to be um your business travel uh the how you transport operate um those are the areas that you have direct influence over when you measure you can also set some strategic objectives you can think about um creating Pathways to Net Zero for example and and it's also really important for communicating uh with with stakeholders your audiences and demonstrating accountability being transparent about your impacts um so for touring these are kind of the big areas uh of environmental impact so we've got travel um that's organized as crew artist performance audiences um transport of freight so um equipment instruments artwork sets and costumes then we've got production um so this is things like um the materials that you use to design sets or um the chemicals the water and the waste kind of the inputs the that go into the creative process then we've got energy so equipment um the space cooling and heating in theaters or venues or if you're a festival um the kind of off-grid energy um Provisions that you might put in place um there's an impact as well around marketing and of course catering so um food the artist performers crew and audiences um it's really important to say some of these areas are more important to sorry not more important some of these areas are more easier to measure than others um and some uh you can't measure everything at once if you're just starting out this is just to say these are some of the areas that you can consider thinking about as part of your touring strategy and just um to reemphasize that point that you're not going to be able to control every things some things you might just be able to influence so this is uh for example audience travel um you can put measures in place which might um influence how audiences decide to get to you get to your event or to your tour um but at the end of the day you can't control um that decision or not very easily anyway um so this is a case study from Shambala Festival um so sh Bala are a festival in the UK who have done some incredible work on um sustainability it's really worth having a look at their website and some of the things they've put in place for the festival um but this is just to demonstrate how uh what your how your carbon footprint can change over time as you increase the scope of what you measure so in 2022 um their footprint looked like it was 92% audience travel and 7.6% uh for everything else but when they um widened the scope of what they were measuring and they started to break down that everything else uh into kind of materials food and drink um waste water and sewage you can see that they got a completely different um picture a much more granular detail about uh the different impacts but also it hugely increased their um their carbon footprint so in 2022 it was 317 tons and then by 2023 it was 995 tons which is a huge increase but um it's it's because they've measured so much more and in so much more detail um so they're now opting of um better information and they can form their strategy um accordingly um this isn't uh another a case study about um kind of how you can use data um and carbon footprinting um so this was a piece of work that was done by the band Massive Attack um and this was in 2019 they partnered with um the Tindle Center for climate change research to explore opportunities for significantly reducing emissions associated with live music and touring so the first phase focused on uh looking at the band's um touring practices then the second phase developed focusing on developing a road map for The Wider live music sector so kind of scaling what they've learned to support the delivery of emissions reductions in line with um the Paris agreement um so they wanted to aim for zero um full elimination of emissions not Net Zero so the term Net Zero can often include um that kind of offsetting element which I've spoken about but this is about really really reaching Net Zero 100% and that was what they were aiming for so they broke down what progress needed to happen in each sector of their impacts across different areas of activity and looked at how super low carbon needs to be really baked into every decision um using influence as well as wider influence to Champion new prati practice and overcome challenges and they also found that monitoring and reviewing of progress is really essential to drive that more systemic change um so that's about everybody coming together in um and using their influence to overcome barriers and Champion new practices um and this is uh just a screenshot of kind of what came out of those key Milestones so they oops they recommendations um were to limit air travel to more than 80% of the 2019 level and then they have this series of goals which focus on those different impact areas so um equipment efficiency uh reducing building emissions and putting dates in place for when they think they can achieve those things so how do you go about this um luckily JB had um some freely avail freely available carbon calculator which has been designed specifically for the arts and culture sector which can help organizations to track and understand their environmental data um and the impact of of their work um so we there's a uh section specifically for touring which can break down all all of these different impacts and help you input and measure the data and and the address for signing up is just there at the bottom of the side slide but a few top tips don't get overwhelmed if you're just starting out it can um feel like a lot so don't try to measure everything at once um start with those key impact areas and then improve the data slowly over time um speaking to different members of um staff or people within your organization who have access to the information you need um you can also give those people responsibility for inputting the data or or or leading on collecting that data and carry on taking action in the meantime don't become um so focused on on data that you you give up on everything else that you're working with on sustain in terms of sustainability and touring um so I've already spoken about uh the impact of flying but this is just to put that impact into kind of a visual comparison so when we talk about avoiding emissions how your travel makes a difference as does the dist overall distance that you travel and so you can see here that a long haul flight business class um has a lot more emissions than a Shor hole flight um this is a car so in summary it's better if you are going to fly it's better to fly economy you take up less space um than in business class um and that impacts the kilograms of CO2 per kilometer um that you can see here Eurostar and um domestic Rail and Coach are some of the lowest uh ways lowest impact ways that you can travel so slow Mobility um obviously going by train or coach is a much kind of slower way of reaching your destination um but there are some benefits so of course lower emissions as we've just touched on um it means that you can spend more time in different places and potentially get a better story as of your tour um but the downside is of course it can be more expensive it means that artists are away from home for longer periods of time um it might mean travel days that aren't necessarily paid for so that's about negotiating as part of funding contracts um your desire to to travel in a slow environmentally friendly manner um and also it means of of course not all locations are accessible um by train or slower forms of travel uh so it might mean excluding certain geographical areas um but a really nice example uh it can't work everybody um but uh the man of Deo um who's a Grammy nominated artist and he runs his own band and has collaborated with many artists as well as um appeared as a solo with the London Symphony Orchestra um in 2021 he toured entirely by bik um and I think this is around Austria and Germany you can see the the mountains in the background there so they designed um specially built bike containers to transport all of their equipment and musical instruments um and they generated all of the electricity they needed from solar panels and they had um food was produced each day by their local um fans and concert visitors so there wasn't need to kind of buy um hly packaged or processed foods on on the route another really great example is the orchestra for the Age of Enlightenment so in 2019 2020 they did a um Overland Tour by train from London to Budapest um and this was something that was voted for um by the by their members um it was a democratic process and it's something that the orchestra themselves wanted to trial um by doing this they managed to reduce the impact of the Tour by 15 Tons of Co oh sorry six tons of CO2 um but it did increase the journey time from four hours to 24 hours which is obviously a really big increase um however they did use that time on on the journey as um part of the creative process so they used it to have um kind of conversations they wouldn't have usually had time to have um perhaps conduct meetings and also just um really appreciate and gain uh inspiration from the landscape as they were passing through all the different countries um on the train and they've got a great YouTube video which talks a little bit about some of their learnings um which you can follow that link in your own time um so in terms of roting and Logistics um so we've already talked about prioritizing train travel um you can also think about using electric or hybrid cars instead of um conventional petrol or diesel cars um bio biofuel buses are less impactful than um obviously petrol or diesel buses and in terms of logistics um you can request fuel efficient trucks biofuel trucks and opt for sea Freight rather than Air Freight um the way that you plan and design the tour overall can have a really really big impact on um emissions so this is a case study um it's an article by Ben Start and it was featured in uh Last Night A DJ took a flight which is a report into DJ touring impacts and this looked at the inefficiencies of touring schedules both um economically and environmentally um so it it looked at a schedule of an artist that he had worked with um and did a hypothetical rerooting to cut out unnecessary Journeys and use trains where possible and what actually happened on the left um so on the left uh was the route that was planned and then on the right is the route um that they redesigned and um through redesigning and making these tweaks to the to the touring schedule the differences um achieved in both emissions and cost are really quite um astounding so you can see there was 26% um reduction in kilometers traveled 51% reduction in CO2 so a com absolutely harving um the overall impact of the tour and um also reduction in costs which is again really substantial 47% reduction and I've put a link there um if you want to read the full article but basically better rooting um can have a huge environmental impact as probably as well as a well-being impact on the artists um not having to take so many flights um so I just wanted to touch on um fuel theater they're an independent producer producer in the UK um in the UK's live performance sector uh and they've produced shows festivals films installations um podcast some books but touring is a big part of their work both in the UK and internationally and they um very committed to sustainability and they wanted to do an experiment to tour using electric van uh so basically they took a two-year lease on a Mercedes ev2 um and um they used this as like a way to revive their touring modu um following on from the covid pandemic and they developed a whole um Tour by electric van so one of the things that they did was um uh use projection instead of a physical set for the tour um which uh helped with kind of like the the loading of the van um and they basically did a sort of experiment and they've shared all of the learnings from that experiment on their website so they kind of the key successes the limitations and the costs um as as a as a toolkit for the sector some more practical actions um you can think about playing it more sustainable or performing at more sustainable venues um I'll go on to Green Riders a little bit bit later um but developing a green rider was a really great way of engaging with venues and using purchasing power to choose more sustainable providers engaging audiences um and also sharing what you're doing to inspire others to tour more sustainab um so the glass house uh here is a venue in the north of England it's now called it used to be called The Sage Gates head but it's now called glass house and they um put a public transport partnership in place with local providers to offer free Metro and Ferry tickets um for people going to their shows two hours before and after performances to encourage audiences to take public transport um so that's a really nice example of something you can do um by working in collaboration um another emerging module for touring is what something um that's being called Deep Mobility or deep touring so deep touring is about spending um longer in one geographic area it can mean um potentially having uh more kind of small smaller shows in an area or more engagements per leg of the tour um it can also involve kind of forging new collaborations or engaging with local communities and artists as part of the creative process and the performance um some of the benefits are um you you form this deeper connection and the work might have more kind of cultural value um and more connection to the the place and the kind of learning in the process that goes into that one of the challenges can be around exclusivity agreements um and it also could mean again a longer time away for artists but a couple of really inspiring examples um Yoda on the road was a musical project um which celebrated the 50th year of Turkish migration to Belgium and it had three groups of musicians each with two Turkish and two Belgian musicians who traveled by train and car from Istanbul to um in Turkey to gent um in Belgium tracing the same rots that migrants used um so in every city that they stopped they would meet with a migrant musician um who would give them a song which would then become part of their repertoire on the tour and then the event um sorry the tour then cul culminated in an event um uh at istano Express Festival in Gent and they also make a documentaries and a publication about um about the story on on the journey another example of a a deep tour um so this is disraeli's 20year deep tour and they set out to have the best environmental and social impact possible so again it was Rail and low carbon forms of travel um but as as part of the tour they connected with local food producers um they planted seeds seeds and trees in all of the cities that they visited and they made merchandise with um recycled or sustainable materials another really nice element to this tour was um the connection and collaboration with local Choir in each of the the locations and they also offered free tickets to young people um with less access giving them um a paid platform to uh for emerging artists and disadvantaged artists to Showcase their work um a third a third um emerging concept is lft concept touring um so I mentioned Lyft earlier on in the webinar um so as I mentioned earlier Lyft are an International Festival based in London but during the pmic again they really wanted to challenge the traditional model of international touring with a constructive and critical response to the radical shifting nature of performance and touring in a time of extreme flux and change internationally um and what they came up with with was this model of um touring touring Concepts and ideas rather than the artists themselves so they at a number of different forms of doing this so it could be remote working it could be trans transferring a performance um different interpretations of musical scores or designs room for local artists to appear in an existing production um digital collaborations um also hybrid digital um physical collaborations um and so they looked at sort of artist to artist models uh so this is the work um that was made for artists as a means of collaborating and furthering a relationship or a collaboration with other artists and the main focus was on how to um how exchange could be facilitated in new ways in different places and how artists could transfer their work um to another artist and have those projects then um be shared with audiences uh then the artist to audience model um which focused on um it was a kind of set of conditions which were create which was created by the artists um which were then experienced by the a audience um with the provocation of taking the artist out of the equation in terms of being present in the space so the emphasis there was to think about how the work could be taken on and adapted by another host or artist in another city and how other audiences um uh in very different places or different different reties might perceive or experience that work differently and then artist participant Community um this one's more of a broad concept um but it's about different ways of engaging with groups of local non-artists or participants as creators um so asking questions like how can a group of participants be gathered around a work and project um what do you need to make that work what do the presenters need to do and what's the Legacy after the engagement what's the potential for co-creation models as well as participatory models in the concept toring format um so to develop all of this work uh 15 artists from Brazil Canada England Germany Italy Scotland South Africa and the USA worked on nine projects um together and took part in an online residency over four months and to come up with these different artistic Concepts um and here's another example of moving the idea and the concept rather than the artist um this is a play um K by KY Mitchell and it's a monologue about a stressed out theater worker uh whose company emissions are touring a devised show called climate beasties um and basically the the player was staged by the local creative team with different performers in each venue um they chose to have a woman of color or someone from an under represented Community um with all of the performers in the different teams um they had a zero travel rule so that wasn't set in stone but it was a way to basically prompt new ways of working participating theaters um were issued with guidelines uh so a bit like a green Rider uh shows could be offgrid electricity could be generated during the performance um sets and costumes could be produced locally and use of secondhand materials was also encouraged and then um finally each stop should also feature a local choir um there's a really nice quot from Katie Mitch Mitchell here which sums up um brings us back to the first point that we covered in the webinar around um inclusivity and equity and sustainable travel so zero travel is a privileged position for a lot of countries we have to think sensitively and thoughtfully about the global South and how they might want to join the conversation so just to finish I'm just going to um sign post you to some tools and resources um so we've touched on green Riders a couple of times in the webinar um but on the Julie's bicycle website we have um some different articles and top tips and also a template that that can be used for green Riders um so green Riders can be a really useful an important tool for opening the conversation about sustainability between artists and venues on a tour um and um a few top tips is just some suggestions such as um the kind of length of the document how easy it is to navigate think about making your requests realistic but also trying to stretch the ambition and systemic changes um that you want to create in the long term um and it's also a way of of working together so thinking about kind of joint responsibility um so for example promoting sustainable travel options for audiences um some top tips so leave sufficient Time for Action and dialogue build relationships or find the right person with a new organization to engage with um make sure your Rider basically reaches the right person with the right decision-making power um build agreements on the big impact areas into your Rider from um onto your contract from early on so that's more for large Productions um and venues and events can uh proactively include information on their own existing initiatives as part of technical specifications um so incoming towards exhibitions Productions know what they they do or don't need to follow up on um and then key house in-house contacts can be nominated uh for the kind of follow-up conversations that need to happen later on for all of those environmental actions um and lastly push for more contractual accountability among artists and companies that hold more negotiating power from the start of any negotiations um here's a couple of examples that you can look at so Equity um have a whole campaign for the screen industry um and lots of tips on how to use a green Rider on their web page which can be translatable to other art forms and sectors as well and again new adventures um filter their own grp Rider in collaboration with um two performing ven performance venues um saders wilds and Norwich Theater Royal uh to create a framework for touring which is split into actions like um to be taken before the tour uh whilst at the venue and then also some future goals to work um on together as well which is a nice um a nice way of framing the different parts of the actions um this is a really useful map um created by the Flanders art institute and this map basically canus the tool and to see which uh destinations can be reached from Brussels within 6.5 hours it just really highlights how well connected Europe is in terms of train travel that can be used to help um inform tours um J's bicycle also have these three research report reports on our on our website called moving arts and they look at the touring impacts and opportunities for um three different art forms so bands orchestras and theaters so if you want to um have a deep dive into some of that data those are some really good resources to have a look at and finally um you can find lots more information about um all different elements of sustainability and working sustainab sustainably on Julie's bicycle web page and by following our socials um uh and having a look at our resource Hub so thank you very much for listening um and do get in touch if you have any questions um
2024-11-20 00:46
