Reflecting on: Evaluation in practice 

29 January 2026: Environmental and creative practitioners met for an online Green Tease to share methods for embedding evaluation into arts-climate projects.

At Culture for Climate Scotland we use an evaluation framework (PDF 1MB), developed through the embedded PhD research of Emma Hall. This framework guides the evaluative approach across our embedded artist projects. This event emerged out of discussions with another organisation forging its own evaluative approach – the Crichton Carbon Centre. Our collaborators for the event were:

• Vicky Johnson, Peatland Project Officer, Crichton Carbon Centre
• Kerry Morrison, Crichton Carbon Centre Artist
• Chris Fremantle, Lecturer, Robert Gordon University

The event was inspired by the ways in which environmental and artistic methods of evaluation are being tested and combined at Crichton Carbon Centre. Kerry holds a somewhat unique position of being permanently employed by Crichton Carbon Centre as ‘artist’, which enables her to develop programmes of creative practice that integrate arts approaches into Crichton Carbon Centre monitoring and applied research, and engage diverse audiences. Kerry explains that the development of the organisation’s first arts evaluation framework will enable her to reflect on the relative success of these artistic interventions – to understand if her approaches to collaboration, communication and engagement are achieving the outcomes she intends. It will also demonstrate the contribution of a long-term embedded artist to ecological restoration. The framework can then be used to advocate for the creation of similar roles for artists within other environmental organisations.

The Green Tease was an opportunity for peer-to-peer learning and support, for sharing the thinking behind evaluative work at Culture for Climate Scotland and Crichton Carbon Centre. Our shared questions were:

• What can artists and climate practitioners learn from each other when co-designing processes of evaluation?
• How do we stay on course and forge insightful, consistent processes of evaluation during long-form arts-climate collaborations?
• Why are we undertaking evaluation? How do we ensure this work informs best practice and communicates impact?

A recording of the Green Tease: Evaluation in practice can be viewed on Vimeo. 

An introduction to Culture for Climate Scotland’s evaluation framework

Lewis Coenen-Rowe, culture/SHIFT manager at Culture for Climate Scotland, opened the session with an overview of our evaluative approach. You can access his presentation via Dropbox: Green Tease: Evaluation in practice slide deck on Dropbox (pptx 11.71MB).

He described the frustration felt when evaluative methods are not fit for purpose, when key performance indicator approaches fail to capture the changes catalysed by arts-climate projects. This provided the impetus to develop Culture for Climate Scotland’s open-access evaluation framework.

The framework has five key principles, ensuring all evaluative processes are:

• Bespoke to the context and agile, adaptable to change.
• Holistic, considering the whole process and wider context.
• Values-led, underpinned by our organisational ideas and ethics.
• Complexity appropriate, reflecting diverse stakeholders, interacting elements and uncertainty.
• Reflexive, shaping the collaborative process throughout.

The five tools Culture for Climate Scotland finds helpful in designing and guiding evaluation include:

• Nine dimensions of evaluating creative practices – a framework developed as part of the  CreaTures, Creative Practices for Transformational Futures project, prompting consideration of the kind of change we seek to enact.
• Co-designing evaluation – inviting project partners and participants to shape how success will be quantified and perceived.
• Theory of change – a mapping process charting the route from our current paradigm to a vision of change.
• Creative data collection – encapsulating a multitude of evaluative methods that go beyond survey completion, engaging participants in more stimulating and imaginative ways.
• Storytelling evaluation method developed by The Old Fire Station, based on open-ended questions and discussion, designed to capture information missed by other evaluative methods.

Discussion: Evaluating peatland restoration and artistic interventions  

In the main body of the Green Tease, Vicky Johnson, Kerry Morrison and Chris Fremantle discussed:

• How they define evaluation within their work and which methods they commonly use.
• What they evaluate and how to retain or refine focus during complex, multi-year projects.
• Why evaluation is significant – how it contributes to personal reflection, evidence and communication of best practice and wider appreciation of the impact of arts-climate work.

Vicky explained Crichton Carbon Centre is currently endeavouring to expand their approach to evaluating peatland restoration beyond measuring carbon. They now use a multitude of methods from photographic analysis, measuring the water table and biodiversity monitoring, to socio-economic metrics such as land use and employment. Kerry’s work as embedded artist adds a new arts-led dimension to their evaluative approach. 

Kerry’s approach to data collection is multi-faceted and includes ‘deep hanging-out’ – a social sciences method for collecting observations and opinions about a specific place. While hanging out, Kerry performs creative activities – eg field drawing at peatland restoration sites or sewing in a park – and participates in the conversations these activities elicit. Kerry enters into conversation with those who approach her without an agenda, prioritising generosity and transparency. These interactions provide unique insight on perceptions of place and subject. Kerry has developed an ethical code to guide her approach which has now been adopted within Crichton Carbon Centre.

Chris contributed, reflecting on the difference between evaluation and research. Evaluation, he explained, relies on comparing the actions undertaken with an understanding of best practice or an ideal outcome, while research is undertaken when the desired outcome is not known. By these definitions, art practitioners like Kerry operate as researchers, responding to stimuli and undertaking iterative creative processes towards a less determined outcome. This is why many creative practitioners experience a conflict when faced with non-arts processes of evaluation which assume a known outcome.

Developing the conversation, Vicky spoke about what signifiers are used to measure peatland health at different stages of restoration. She commented on the value of outside expertise when conducting ecological evaluation and reflected on whether external evaluation might be available or useful within the arts.

Vicky also spoke to the value of having an artist in the Crichton Carbon Centre team. She mentioned it has changed her perception of the work undertaken at Crichton Carbon Centre and enhanced how their work can be externally communicated. Chris responded to this, reflecting that creative methods can reach new audiences and capture nuance and contradiction in ways not possible through conventional data expression.

Chris continued to expand on this idea, reflecting that the valuable knowledge to be gained from evaluating arts-climate projects rarely lies in quantitative data, eg number of people engaged with a project. Instead, evaluation must look at the types of relationships and exchanges generated.

Kerry closed the discussion by emphasising the importance of asking, ‘what hasn’t worked?’ when evaluating a project. This is the part of her self-reflection and evaluation that she finds to be highly productive, guiding the development of her creative approach. As part of this reflection, Kerry articulated that a potential role of arts-led evaluation is to ask what or who is missing from an evaluative picture. In the context of Crichton Carbon Centre, she has identified that the voices of those working directly on the peatlands are not well represented. She is now working, alongside Crichton Carbon Centre colleagues, to rectify this, employing creative methods to gather and represent the site-specific knowledge of this group.

Image Credit: Kerry Morrison, Wild and Productive observation log sheets. Exploring the Seaforth to Bootle stretch of the Leeds Liverpool Canal. Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial, 2009.

Further resources

• Learn more about the development of Culture for Climate Scotland’s evaluation framework and view the evaluation framework visual summary (PNG 300KB).

• Explore the nine dimensions of evaluating creative practices, a framework developed as part of the CreaTures, Creative Practices for Transformational Futures project.

• Learn more about the Storytelling Evaluation Method developed by the Old Fire Station and explore projects which utilise this approach.

• Learn about the Crichton Carbon Centre’s approach to Arts and Engagement and Kerry Morrison’s role as embedded artist.

• View the Research Impact Evaluation Framework poster by Forest Research authored by Lyall, Meagher and Nutley.

About Green Tease

This event took place as part of the Green Tease events series and network, a project organised by Culture for Climate Scotland, bringing together people from arts and environmental backgrounds to discuss, share expertise and collaborate. Green Tease forms part of our culture/SHIFT programme.