Post Tour

The tour is done! (Long live the tour.) It’s time to pack up, tally up, debrief, and assess; to capture what you’ve learnt, and then to pass it on to others.

Set disposal / storage

If the end of the tour is the show’s final outing, the first thing you’ll need to think about is how to dispose of the set. 

  • Start with your materials inventory. If you wrote down anticipated disposal methods in your materials inventory as things came in, you can use these notes to organise things into piles at pack-out (e.g. store, donate, recycle).

  • Ensure that any hired equipment doesn’t get damaged on its return. Reuse the packaging that was supplied and avoid unnecessary tape.

  • Retain anything you’ll reuse in the future. Be realistic. If it’s going to sit gathering dust, it’s better off going to someone who needs it.

  • Utilise sharing networks and donate things that might be reused, especially to theatre-specific organisations. e.g. The (Green) Green Room in Pōneke or Theatre Trade and Exchange – Auckland (on Facebook). This way things remain in our under-resourced sector at their highest value.

  • Dismantle the set and ensure that any recyclable elements are salvaged.

  • Sell components of higher value (e.g. costumes, props, and electrical equipment). You could put the proceeds towards carbon offsets (more on this below).

  • Take other things to tip shops to minimise waste going to landfill (refer to the Disposal Directory).

  • Utilise e-waste collections for batteries and other electrical waste. Make sure anything hazardous is separated and disposed of correctly (e.g. paints, oils, chemicals, fuels, and solvents, CFL power-saving lightbulbs and other fluorescent lamps). Refer to the Disposal Directory.

  • Calculate (or estimate) the quantity of waste you’re sending to landfill and include this in your offsetting.

Te Wao Nui a Tāne

Toitū he kāinga, whatungarongaro he tangata

The land remains while the people disappear

As touring artists, we use the resources of the ngahere, but this shouldn’t be a one-way journey. Be a good ancestor. We can fell a tree to carve a waka and journey far from home, but when the waka is worn out, we can return it to the ngahere, to rot and nourish the forest for future generations.

Measure Emissions

Collate all the data you’ve entered in your Touring Venue Data Collection Template, then transfer this to the Circulate emissions calculator to tally your emissions. Once you’ve worked these out, you can purchase carbon credits to offset them.

Carbon offsetting is a last resort, after all other efforts to reduce and redesign have been made. It is by no means a perfect system, it won’t stop the climate crisis, and it can cause real problems when it leads to things like monoculture pine forests across our landscape. At best, it’s a transitional strategy on the way to a decarbonised economy: first and foremost, we need to cut fossil fuel emissions.

But – giving our environmental footprint a financial value can help to change the way we operate, and investing in effective and credible offset programmes can deliver tangible environmental results.

Carbon Offsets

navigating carbon offset programmes

Not all offset programmes are created equal. There’s some residual suspicion of the industry from the early days, before the market was regulated, and even recently a Guardian investigation found that a number of offset programmes were a load of hot air. This doesn’t mean all programmes are a crock, but it does mean you want to choose carefully.

It shouldn’t just be a box-ticking exercise – if you’re going to do it, think about the impact your investment will have. Ideally carbon offset programmes are accredited, certified, and local, but the landscape is ever-changing, and some of the leading schemes on offer through the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in Aotearoa (such as Toitū and Ekos) aren’t currently being assessed under international standards.

An alternative approach is to offset your carbon by investing directly in local environmental projects such as native planting (e.g. Trees That Count and Love Rimurimu). Generally, the more local you go, the more tangible the outcome. You’re better to support something direct and close to home, rather than sending money out into some forestry programme overseas. We’ve compiled a list of community climate projects here – choose one that’s meaningful to you.

What about airline offset programmes?

Airline offsetting is convenient, but you don't always know where your investment is going, particularly overseas where there are so many options. It’s certainly better than nothing, but better yet is to calculate all your touring emissions and offset these through a reputable local programme.

Debrief and evaluate

One of the easiest stages to overlook is evaluating your efforts. The pressure is on, the next project calls. But you’re never going to get everything right the first time, and there are always lessons to be learned. Take the time and do it right. You’ll thank yourself next time.

Tips for tour evaluation

  • At the conclusion of your tour, ask your team to fill in a short survey recording their transport usage, and their reflections on the green action you took.

    • Which systems worked well and what could be improved? Which venues had good green systems in place? What about accommodation? 

Depending on the size of your team, you might approach this in different ways (e.g. a conversation rather than a survey) – the important thing is to make space for honest reflection. 

  • Once this feedback is in and you’ve tallied your emissions (see above), schedule a full-team debrief led by your sustainability officer. This might be combined with a general tour debrief, but make sure you make time for an assessment of your green action in particular. Did you meet your goals? What was challenging? What would you do differently next time? 

    • Talk through the results of your materials inventory and how this relates to the targets you set (e.g. the Green Theatre baseline).

    • If you missed your targets, brainstorm things you might do differently in the future.

  • Write up what you learnt. Update your green goals and strategies for your next tour now while it’s fresh in your minds.

Share your successes with other practitioners so they can see strategies they can implement, and with funders and presenters so they can see you care about this. You’re probably not asked to report on the environmental impacts of your activity in your funding report – do it anyway. Advocate for funders to include environmental measures as eligible costs.

Spread the word

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