Setting The scene
Making and touring work sustainably can feel like a daunting prospect. Many artists are keen to do more but don’t know where to start – there’s a fair bit to get your head around if you’re wanting to go green. Here’s a rundown of the concepts and principles that underpin this guide.
Sustainable Sustainability
Making theatre is often perilous, and environmental action doesn’t take place in a vacuum. As theatre makers, we’re often time-poor as well as straight-up poor-poor, and factoring in environmental sustainability might seem like one more thing...
But making theatre greener doesn’t mean buying and touring in Teslas. Many of the ideas in this guidebook involve little cost or extra time – it’s about working more efficiently in terms of our impact on the planet, as well as time and budget. A number of the ideas might even reduce time and costs (e.g. using a materials inventory to set yourself up for a faster and easier pack-out).
It’s also worth saying that you don’t have to tackle everything at once – don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. It’s better to take any green action than none at all. Start by tackling something small. Start by getting a compost bin. Pace yourself and look after the team of people around you.
"It’s no secret that we need sustained action for the climate, but we can only achieve sustained action if we can keep ourselves and our teams engaged and energised. If you or your team is burnt out from your project, or the working culture within your company, they will not be able to remain in the theatre ecosystem or engaged in climate action for the long term."
– Kevin Matthew Wong (Canadian Green Alliance's Sustainable Theatre Guidebook)
Te Wao Nui a Tāne
Photo Credit: Fié Neo
Tiakina ngā manu,
ka ora te ngahere
Ka ora te ngahere,
ka ora ngā manu
Look after the birds
and the forest flourishes.
If the forest flourishes,
the birds flourish.
INtersectional action
Any meaningful action to sustain the whenua means recognising and engaging with tangata whenua.
“A large-scale report… concluded that the cheapest and most efficient way to protect forests and sequester carbon was to protect or expand the land rights of indigenous people.”
In Aotearoa this means honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi – acting on the principle of kaitiakitanga (our place within and responsibility to the natural world), and learning from mātauranga Māori – the knowledge of the natural world that’s been passed down through generations.
It also means recognising that the climate crisis exacerbates existing inequalities and injustices. As theatre designer, producer, and researcher Ian Garrett says: “The fight for a sustainable future is also a fight for a just future.” (Sustainable Theatre Guidebook)
Photo Credit: Fié Neo
Te Wao Nui a Tāne
Manaaki whenua, manaaki tangata, haere whakamua
Care for the land, care for the people, go forward.
The Pickle King 2017, Photo Courtesy of Indian Ink Theatre Company
Zero Carbon Act
In 2019, Aotearoa became one of the first countries in the world to enshrine climate change targets in law. The Zero Carbon Act legislates commitments we’ve made through agreements such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Paris Agreement and the Kyoto Protocol. The idea is that the Act holds current and future governments to account by providing a framework to “develop and implement clear and stable climate change policies that
contribute to the global effort under the Paris Agreement to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels
allow New Zealand to prepare for, and adapt to, the effects of climate change”
A key target of the act is to “reduce net emissions of all greenhouse gases (except biogenic methane) to zero by 2050.”
The Zero Carbon Act isn’t perfect – there’s room for governments to fudge the details of how we get to zero and few real consequences if they fall behind. The exception for methane indicates a glaring hole around agricultural emissions, even though these account for almost 50% of NZ’s total. Still, it’s not nothing, and it's an important context for any efforts to reduce our impact on the environment.
You can read a good overview of NZ’s climate emissions at Gen Less and find the full text of the Zero Carbon Act through the Ministry for the Environment website.
-
Originally developed in the UK, but since adapted around the world, the Theatre Green Book proposes an industry standard for sustainable theatre. It outlines three levels of action to take (baseline, intermediate, and advanced) depending on capability, with steps towards these goals within each department.
The baseline standard boils down to the following:50% of materials used in the production have had a previous life (i.e. they’re reused or recycled)
65% of materials are stored or reused to have a future life
Materials that harm the environment are avoided where possible
A Materials Inventory is used to track sources and planned means of disposal
Journeys and deliveries are minimised
Technical systems are run sustainably
A meeting is held to assess the show’s environmental impact and share lessons learnt
The intermediate and advanced standards follow the same approach, but with higher targets (e.g. percentages of materials).
Throughout this guidebook we refer to ideas laid out in the Theatre Green Book, and direct you to some of their tools.
What’s the gas about emissions?
Quick 101: Greenhouse gas emissions are substances released into the atmosphere which trap the sun’s heat around the earth. One of the major ones – methane – is produced when organic matter breaks down and from livestock burps and farts, but the most substantial one, carbon dioxide, is the result of fossil fuels being burnt through human activity – when we drive, fly planes, or use coal to generate power...
Reducing the environmental impact of touring theatre means reducing the emissions this activity produces. But what are you responsible for? There aren’t clear-cut rules, but here are a couple of frameworks for thinking about it:
Scope 1, 2 and 3
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol is a widely accepted international reporting standard for emissions, which breaks them down into three categories:
Because these emissions come from sources that are both indirect and diverse, Scope 3 is the hardest to monitor, but it accounts for the bulk of an organisation’s emissions.
In most cases, theatre touring emissions are classified as Scope 3. Tracking and reducing these will make the greatest impact on cutting the overall emissions of your touring.
-
Another way to think about it is your sphere of control (things about which you make operational and financial decisions) and your sphere of influence (things that others decide but where you can nudge by requesting and recommending). When you’re touring a show, a number of things might be out of your hands (you might not be able to dictate what materials a venue uses in marketing or how they dispose of their waste), but you usually do have a say in how you get to the gig (fly or drive), where you stay (hotel room or self-catering), and the set you take on the road.
The approach we encourage in this guidebook is that if it’s within your sphere of control, you should take responsibility for it, and make a conscious sustainable choice about it.
If it’s within your sphere of influence, it’s more of a grey area. Are you responsible for the greenhouse emissions created by audience members travelling to and from your shows? Good question. But even if you don’t factor this activity into your calculations, you can still reduce the impact of your tour by influencing behaviour – e.g. encouraging the use of public transport and bikes to get to your show, and requesting things like bike parks at the venues.
Photo Credit: Fié Neo
Te Wao Nui a Tāne
He tina ki runga, he tāmore ki raro
In order to flourish above, one must have strong roots below
The abundance of our ngahere depends on good roots and the nutrients that go into them. We see the trees above the ground, but beneath the earth lies the infrastructure that holds them up and the history of what has come before. Whakapapa literally means the layers of papa, or land. Green action – like forests, and people – must be built on strong foundations: an understanding of context and history.
So what are the emissions from touring?
What are the heavy hitters?
We did a deep dive and tracked Trick of the Light’s emissions across a year of activity in 2022. This included regular office and admin activity, a few tours within Aotearoa, a tour overseas to Australia, and the rehearsal and remount of a show in our home city, so it covered a range of things a NZ company might do. Our total emissions were 15.5 tonnes; our touring emissions were 10.6 tonnes of C02.
As you can see in the charts below, taking work on tour was by far our largest contributor (over local performances, rehearsals, and working from our home office).
Breakdown of total activity
Within these tours, transport was the biggest contributor (70%) – more than accommodation (16%), freight (1.5%), and venue energy combined (14%). Although we didn't include audience travel in our own company's footprint, we did estimate its impact across our tours to better understand it.
Within our own transport, flights accounted for 90% of emissions.
What difference can we make?
With the Paris Agreement, countries around the world agreed “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels”. This number was chosen as a guardrail to avoid the most devastating impacts of climate change – more extreme heat, rainfall, drought, and the spread of infectious diseases.
Keeping below 1.5°C will require the average person on earth to emit just 2.3 tonnes of CO2 per year. Currently the global average is closer to 5 tonnes, whilst in Aotearoa it’s 7.5 tonnes per person.
Of course, many factors that lead to this average aren’t set by individuals. It can sometimes feel like our own efforts to reduce our footprint are futile compared to the impact of governments and corporations – when just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions, when Fonterra alone produces a fifth of the emissions in NZ, and when a change in government can see Aotearoa go from world-leading policy to fossil of the day. The greatest difference you can make is likely advocating and voting for the change you want to see.
But the choices we make as individuals have an impact. A flight from Tāmaki Makaurau to Ōtautahi produces 108kg of CO2 per person. A flight from Tāmaki to London produces around 2 tonnes.
To achieve a sustainable future, we’ve got to lobby, organise, campaign, and vote – we can call for climate action through the content of our work – but we can also make a difference through the choices that we make. Key to this is getting our heads round what our footprint actually is.
Aileen Davidson and co performing at Gisborne Festival in the 80s. They travelled there by train, doing quick shows for the crowds at each station. Photo: Peter Black
Tracking emissions
Why track this stuff? Why spend the time crunching numbers when you could be doing green action in practice?
Look, it’s a balance. If you’re an individual artist and navigating a spreadsheet isn’t for you, kei te pai. Walk the walk, use less stuff, and dispose of it mindfully. This guidebook will offer some steps you can take.
But if you’re an organisation, you track lots of things already. If you can run a budget, you can track your footprint too.
In either case, it’s worth considering, because by tracking this, you’ll see what’s actually having an impact. Otherwise you’re just taking a punt. You might find that you’re busting a gut to do something that seems green, when it doesn’t actually make much of a difference.
Tracking means you’ll come out with a tangible account, so you can see where changes you make are having an impact from tour to tour.
There’s a pragmatic imperative too. Emissions tracking is already common in many other industries, and arts organisations around the world are increasingly required to provide information about their environmental impact as part of funding applications and reports –it seems likely this kind of accounting will soon become commonplace here too. Understanding your own carbon impact now will give you a head start.
Carbon calculators
Fortunately, there are a number of calculators online to help you track your footprint. They range in how comprehensive and user-friendly they are, and it’s worth taking a spin around to see which works for you. One essential thing is to use one that draws upon up-to-date, relevant factors (i.e. the amount of greenhouse gases generated by an activity). The Julie’s Bicycle calculator is thorough and user-friendly, but unless you’re presenting work in the UK, it will give the wrong numbers.
We recommend the Circulate calculator developed by Arup for and with the arts sector in Australia and Aotearoa. It uses emissions factors specific to these countries, sourced from current national standards and reputable third-party sources. The tool is in its beta phase, regularly expanded and updated, and Arup asks for feedback on the user experience to inform future development. Find out more in the Post-tour section of this guide.
Comparing emissions
Using the Circulate calculator, you can track your actual footprint, or compare different possible options.
For example, if you’re travelling from Tāmaki Makaurau down to Ōtautahi, there are a few ways you could go. Fly? Ferry and drive (by diesel, petrol, hybrid or EV)? Bus? Train? The most environmental option will depend on how many people are travelling.
A group of four people flying would produce 447kg of CO2.
Travelling by petrol car and ferry would reduce emissions by 40% (266kg)
Travelling by hybrid car and ferry would reduce emissions by 75% (109kg)
Travelling by train and ferry would reduce emissions by 80% (81kg)
You might expect that travelling by bus and ferry would also be a good option, however this actually produces 471kg, so from an emissions perspective this is (slightly) worse than flying.
If it’s only one person travelling on the same route however, the impact is quite different, and the results might be surprising:
One person flying produces 112kg of CO2
Travelling alone by petrol car and ferry increases emissions by 135% (264kg)
Travelling alone by hybrid car and ferry reduces emissions slightly (108kg)
Travelling alone by bus and ferry increases emissions slightly (118kg)
Travelling by train and ferry reduces emissions by 82% (20kg)
So for one person, travelling by bus and ferry is (slightly) worse than flying, though much better than travelling by car.
Long-distance trains are few and far between in Aotearoa, and we know they’re unlikely to be viable as a touring option for this route, but we've included them here to highlight how striking a benefit they offer as a mode of transport, especially for reference in touring overseas.
Of course, time and money mean choosing between transport options isn’t always a straightforward swap – travelling by ground transport over longer distances might mean breaking the journey over multiple days, and factoring in accommodation, which comes with additional cost as well as its own footprint. Still, comparing the environmental impact allows you to make an informed choice.
How to collate your data
Circulate is a great calculator, but it has some limitations as a means of collating your data as you go – it can only be accessed by one user, and doesn’t easily allow for copying and pasting. For this reason, we’d suggest collating your information in this data collection sheet – it has separate, duplicable tabs for each stop on the tour, and you can share it with your team via Google Sheets to fill in on the go. Once the tour is over, you can tally up this data to put it into Circulate.
WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER STUFF?
Tracking your greenhouse gas emissions might feel distant and mathematical, but reducing the impact of touring also means reducing materials and waste – action that’s more tangible and can lead to immediate wins.
Waste contributes to our emissions (4.2% of Aotearoa’s annual total), but it’s also a problem in and of itself – causing the degradation of oceans and landscapes, and microplastics entering our food chain. Theatre is ephemeral. Touring shows especially should only live on in the mind, but often we leave a trail of waste behind us – gaffer tape, cable ties, lighting gels, packaging from what we eat at the theatre... Cutting this will minimise your environmental footprint.
We can also reduce our footprint by cutting the touring materials that go on the road, making for a leaner, greener tour – cheaper to transport, easier to pack in and out, less weighed down by clutter. See the section on production design in pre-tour planning for more detail.
REMOVE, REDESIGN, OFFSET
The approach taken in this Guidebook to reduce emissions is to follow three steps: Remove, Redesign, Offset.
This order is important – offsetting is always the last resort. The best way to reduce emissions is to make as many changes as possible in Steps 1 and 2.
Removing and redesigning will in most cases reduce costs, particularly for travel. Assign the money you save here to a budget line for offsetting. More information on offsetting is included in the Post-tour section.
Taking a show on the road isn’t the only way to connect with far-flung audiences. The pandemic saw artists finding a host of new ways to share work. Streaming online allowed artists to reach not only geographically distant audiences, but those who can better access work without a trip to the theatre. Innovative approaches to digital theatre were embraced by the likes of Centrepoint (24 Hour Playwrighting Competition), Auckland Theatre Company (The Seagull), and Silo (Break Bread). James Wenley’s Timeline of Aotearoa New Zealand Theatre and Covid-19 captures the dizzying experimentation that was happening amidst this grim context. There are clear environmental benefits in sharing theatre online – reducing the footprint not only of artists touring their work, but of audience members travelling to and from the theatre – and these are things the industry will carry forward from the last few years.
However, despite the hiss and roar with which we threw ourselves at it, digital theatre is no universal replacement for touring. The pandemic years also highlighted the need and demand from audiences and artists alike for live experiences: the ceremonial intimacy of coming to an event as an individual and leaving as a community – for breathing together as one. Digital theatre has moved beyond simply sticking a camera at the back of the venue, sharing a low-quality live feed, and expecting it to excite, inspire, and resonate.
There are other alternatives to physical travel than watching a feed online. Binge Culture has explored self-guided theatrical audio tours, and is now pioneering a show exchange model, which pairs like-minded companies to present each other’s work in different locations.
“…the days of flying visits are numbered, and for the best. Out of necessity we are going to see more initiatives that seek to maximise gains from minimum resources…”
– Joel Baxendale, Binge Culture
Read about Binge Culture’s performance exchange model here
alternative approaches
You and A.I. by Binge Culture. Photo: Mouce Young
There are exciting possibilities in such alternative approaches, however artists physically travelling their work is irreplaceable, and will always be part of the picture. Let’s figure out the best way we can do it.
Next chapter