Engaging the public
Well over 80% of the population attends a cultural event or joins in an activity in any one year. Arts and cultural organisations have strong, continuing and values-based relationships with their loyal and diverse audiences They can and do influence those audiences on the topic of climate change and arts audiences expect the organisations they support to be acting on climate change, according to Indigo’s Act Green 2024 survey and similar surveys from 2022 and 2023.
As well as our work supporting arts and cultural organisations in reducing their carbon emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change, we encourage and support them to use their artistic work and their communications with audiences to help strengthen public awareness and understanding of and action on climate change. Particularly important is the ability of arts, culture and heritage organisations to help us come together to think collectively, to learn from the past, to imagine and explore positive futures and to craft the stories that will shape society in the years, decades and centuries ahead.
A major plank of this work has been convening the Scottish National Culture for Climate group of national cultural and heritage organisations, collaborating to develop their influence in this area. Group members endeavour to use their individual and joint collections, estates, programmes of work, outreach activities and their relationships with their large audiences to influence society about climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience:
‘It is only by working together in partnership with our fellow organisations and our colleagues that we can address these [climate change] challenges and continue to showcase our heritage and collections to the wider public. … Perhaps the most important contribution that culture can offer is a real message of hope; a way of imagining a brighter, more optimistic future.’
Sir John Leighton – former Director-General, National Galleries of Scotland
This engagement work is woven through other areas of our activity. For example, during Clyde Rebuilt, our project with Climate Ready Clyde, we helped improve the language used by the consortium and by a key European agency, EIT Climate-KIC, to strengthen public engagement with the concept of adaptation.
Our annual environmental reporting programme for arts organisations funded long-term by Creative Scotland encourages and asks for information on respondents’ engagement work. We have seen over the years how practical internal action on climate change in these organisations leads seemingly inevitably to engagement of their audiences through their work and their communications.
As the climate emergency becomes more urgent, we will be stepping up work on this engagement and influencing role.
To find out more, please contact [email protected].