SPRINGBOARD 2023
Scotland in 2045 will be a net-zero country, confident in a changed climate.
Society, communities, jobs and the economy will look very different in this greener, fairer, more equal country.
How do we create this new Scotland?
The transformation needs imagination, conversations, new ways of working.
The inaugural SPRINGBOARD: Assembly for creative climate action took place online from 27 February to 2 March 2023. We invited cultural, environmental and community organisations and individual practitioners, local authorities, businesses, charities, government and public organisations to work together to re-imagine this new Scotland and to grasp the opportunities and overcome the challenges of the journey towards it. We wanted to engender and support collaboration between and across different sectors and different sorts of organisations to achieve the transformational, systemic and national change required.
Visit our SPRINGBOARD 2023 video showcase to watch recordings, which include presentations, provocations and panels covering, for example, Professor Carly McLachlan on strong decarbonisation, urbanism expert Daisy Narayanan discussing transformation, Imandeep Kaur from Civic Square on culture and place and Catriona Laing, Deputy Director for Domestic Climate Change at the Scottish Government on meeting the net-zero targets. They served to provide real-life examples, inspire momentum and raise challenges that fed into the cohort discussions.
What made the assembly different?
This was NOT a conference! Yes, there were inspiring and informative talks and discussions with experts in climate change, culture and social change. But for most of the four-day assembly participants worked in a cross-sectoral ‘cohort’ discussing one of the following three questions and creating bold action plans:
- How do we accelerate the decarbonisation of the cultural sector?
- How can we collaborate for resilience?
- How can culture play its full role in the necessary transformation of society?
How did the cohorts work?
Participants joined a cross-sectoral cohort focusing on one of the three questions above and a topic that they knew about or were interested in.
Each cohort, led by a convenor, worked in a 90-minute breakout session after lunch on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to answer their chosen question, define a clear aim and develop an action plan to work on during 2023. On the final day there was a longer cohort session in the morning – 10.20am-1pm (160 minutes including a 15-minute break) – and, after lunch, a 90-minute plenary that included cohorts presenting their action plans, Q&A and discussion.
We shared progress from each cohort regularly in the exhibition hall so that everyone understood the synergies between the various discussions.
The topics
- Producing the future of theatre and dance in Scotland
- Decarbonising classical music’s international touring
- A changing culture and culture as an agent for change: Building a green arts charter
- Getting Scotland’s Cultural Estate to reach Net Zero
- Visual arts and sustainable legacies: Commissioners and producers supporting sustainable exhibition making and create enduring artworks
- Museums and communities collaborating for a resilient Scotland
- Collaborations between climate and culture
- Sited/public art can provide leadership and new ways of addressing global environment challenges
- Culture’s role in imagining and driving radical transformation
- The role of creative freelancers in the climate crisis
- Heritage playing its full role in the necessary transformation of society
- The role of culture within 20-minute neighbourhoods
Where to next?
This assembly was just the start of the process. We encouraged cohorts to meet regularly during 2023 to continue their work and we convened quarterly check-ins for all cohorts to connect and update on the progress of their transformational work. These check-ins took place online in June, September and December, and more were convened in 2024 and early 2025 before we decided to bring them to a close.
Several of the cohorts continue to work together on their topics eg decarbonising classical music (which is now the Scottish Classical Sustainability Group), 20-minute neighbourhoods, radical transformation (which has grown into the Creative Degrowth Network Scotland) and the cultural estate. Our Green Arts Charter is a direct result of the groundwork that took place during SPRINGBOARD 2023.
The questions in detail
How do we accelerate the decarbonisation of the cultural sector?
Culture needs to radically decarbonise to get to net zero but individual organisations can only achieve so much before they come up against blockages that they can’t address on their own, such as the capital costs of decarbonising cultural buildings or changing the way performing arts tour. The systemic change required to overcome this is likely to mean not just doing the same things differently but doing different things to fulfil culture’s role in the new Scotland. How can we work together – cultural organisations, individual artists and other workers, funders, suppliers, audiences etc – to meet the net-zero targets?
How can we collaborate for resilience?
We all need to adapt to the increasing impacts of climate change – cold snaps and heatwaves, droughts and intense rain and snowfall, high winds and rising sea levels. And people need to adapt too to the impacts of the efforts we take to decarbonise: travelling and eating differently, being prepared to live in a wider variety of temperatures, consuming less overall. How can cultural organisations and practitioners collaborate with non-cultural partners to adapt themselves and contribute fully to wider society’s adaptation to this new world?
How can culture play its full role in the necessary transformation of society?
To decarbonise and adapt to make Scotland climate-ready requires an enormous societal transformation. Local and national government, environmental organisations, public bodies, businesses and others need culture’s engineers of the imagination to work with them and the people of Scotland to help create a better future. What can cultural and climate actors do together over the next three years to ensure that culture plays its part in this transformation?
Accessibility and help to attend
Access
To create a fairer, greener Scotland everyone needs to be able to participate. Talks and discussions were automatically captioned where possible. We provided other help to attend and will continue to do so at future events. For example, with enough notice, we can:
- Provide BSL interpretation
- Help cover the cost of childcare
Financial support for freelancers / volunteers
Recognising that many freelancers and volunteers in the cultural and climate change sectors often cannot participate in events like this due to financial pressures, we awarded 12 bursaries of £350 to help cover the time of those attending.
Registration and fees
To help cover the costs of running the assembly we charged a fee to attend. Understanding that financial pressures were significant for everyone at the time, we kept the cost as low as possible.
- Freelancers and representatives of unfunded organisations – £5 per person
- Representatives of funded organisations – £12.50 per person
Partners and sponsors
We are immensely grateful to Creative Scotland for their support of SPRINGBOARD.
Many thanks to the Dr David Summers Charitable Trust for supporting us to include poetic interventions at SPRINGBOARD from three Scotland-based spoken word artists.
During 2024 we worked on a plan for SPRINGBOARD 2025, which we held on 5 and 6 March.
