Guide to communicating about your environmental actions

1.1 Does your organisation have an environmental sustainability policy and is communications included?

1.2 Is environmental sustainability a core value of your communications strategy?

Tip: Engage conversations with your organisation’s senior leaders to include communications in your environmental policy. If your organisation hasn’t got an environmental sustainability policy yet, embed sustainability in all your communications plans and agenda.

1.3 Do you understand your audience’s attitude towards environmental sustainability?

Tip: Read the latest Act Green 2024 report by Indigo, which shows UK cultural audiences expectations in terms of sustainability. To dive further, watch our audience engagement and sustainability workshop. Tailor messaging to resonate with your audience-specific interests and concerns in terms of sustainability (eg local sustainability concerns).

2.1 Is your organisation aware of greenwashing and artwashing?

Tip: It’s important to understand what greenwashing and artwashing mean, so that you can avoid them and can integrate your understanding of them into communications about your sustainability actions.

2.2 Are you transparent about your sustainability work?

2.2.1 Are your sustainability claims, such as your organisation’s carbon or environmental footprint or savings, supported by evidence? Have you shared the evidence publicly eg sharing the results of your environmental reporting on your organisation’s website or a breakdown (stating what is included and excluded) of your environmental impact?

2.2.2 Are your claims clear and unambiguous? Are they accurate?

2.2.3 Do your claims include all important information?

Tip: To avoid greenwashing, be transparent about your sustainability work and make sure that your claims are evidenced fully using clear and specific language. Clarifying a narrative to present your sustainability work will help make this possible.

Tip: If you’re not confident about your audience’s or other stakeholders’ reaction to it, ask why and explore if you can improve this action. If not, you could include a short statement about your sustainability communications approach to promote transparency about where your organisation is in the sustainability journey. Here is an example of a statement to encourage this approach that you can tailor to your organisation:

‘We aim to be transparent in our communication about our sustainability work. However, we’re on a journey and we recognise it may not be perfect. We are striving to do our best and are open to advice from our audience and stakeholders so that we can work towards sustainability together.’

This approach supports a positive and inclusive culture where issues are addressed through private, compassionate and constructive conversations that encourage learning and improvement, rather than public shaming and criticism.

2.3 Is your sustainability information easy to understand? Do you use simple language wherever possible?

Tip: Define any jargon that surrounds sustainability concepts to explain clearly what you mean. Be transparent about your approach as some words can be difficult to grasp or even have multiple definitions.

2.4 Do you provide a way for your audience, website visitors and other stakeholders to ask questions about your sustainability claims and provide feedback?

Tip: Add a short form or a visible line on your sustainability webpage where people can email your organisation to provide feedback. You can also host open forums to discuss sustainability plans and progress.

2.5 If you platform businesses responsible for high environmental impacts (eg significant contributors to the fossil fuel industry such as the aviation industry), how do you communicate about this? Are you transparent about your decision-making process for sponsors or other contributors?

Tip: Read more about ethical sponsorship in the arts and culture sector on our Mighty Networks channel.

NB: All members of the Green Arts Initiative can join our Mighty Networks channel. If you haven’t joined yet and need help to do so, please let us know at [email protected].

3.1 Is there a dedicated sustainability page or section on your organisation’s website?

3.2 Does the page include a statement about your organisation’s environmental commitments, plan and progress?

Examples: Sustainability statement from Imaginate – Green Imaginate, Edinburgh Art Festival environmental policy and Edinburgh International Festival page on sustainability.

3.3 Is your sustainability page easy to find on your website? If not, can you make it more visible? Can you reduce the number of clicks it takes to reach this page?

4.1 Do you share case studies about sustainability initiatives?

• On your website?
• On social media?
• Through other channels?

Tip: These could be sharing your own initiatives or platforming other organisations’ initiatives. See our case studies as examples.

4.2 How much of your communications do they represent? How visible are they? Could this be improved?

Tip: It doesn’t have to be a success story – sharing what didn’t go right and what you learned is great too. These stories are very important as they contain useful learnings to share internally and with others. It’s also a great way to show the whole story, be transparent and build trust with your audience and stakeholders as you progress on your sustainability journey.

4.3 Is environmental sustainability a theme in your performance/exhibition programme? Do you clearly outline it as a theme? Can your audience easily find sustainability as a theme in your programme?

4.4 Can you communicate your sustainability work in areas you haven’t thought of previously?

Tip: Identify where you can add sustainability communications to your existing channels, eg are there untapped spaces to share about your environmental shows or projects?

This could be a link to your website’s sustainability page or a line about a new show you’re programming that has a sustainability theme.

5.1 Do you share your sustainability policies or practices with all your stakeholders?

Tip: Sustainability policies can be embedded in contracts with your stakeholders (procurement policy, green riders with artists etc). Explore other ways you can signpost the sustainability commitments you are part of, such as charters, networks and other sustainability projects, by sharing them on your website, social media and event tickets.

5.2 Have you considered collaborating with local businesses or communities on sustainability?

Example: Edinburgh Science launched a Buy Local Act Global coffee trail to raise awareness of the climate impact on the coffee industry. Read about Buy Local Act Global in the Edinburgh Reporter.