Decarbonizing Culture#2 Environmental Impacts of Cultural Mobility 2/3 Gwendoleen Sharp

LeCake Train – Chapter 2

In an age where global connectivity and cultural exchange are more accessible than ever before, it is essential to acknowledge the environmental implications of cultural mobility.

Part 2
Presented by Gwendoleen Sharp fromThe Green Room

Editing:
Kevin Nivard

Music:
Leo Sokolovsky
______

LeCake is a European cultural innovation project which is part of the ecological transition.
It involves 8 partners from 6 European countries.

LeCake has 2 components :
LeCake Train (research, design, knowledge sharing, training, publications)
LeCake Lab (creation of sustainable European art projects)

LeCAKE Train is Funded by Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership and Label Paris Europe

La Transplanisphere — France, Paris latransplanisphere.com (coordinator)
Ex-Quorum — Portugal, Evora facebook.com/exquorum/
Teatro Rigodon — Italy, Rieti teatrorigodon.it
La métonymie / Le sas – France, Paris Le sas, groupe science-art-société
The Shift Project – France, Paris theshiftproject.org
Ohi Pezoume / Urban Dig project – Greece, Athens urbandigproject.org
Pro Progressione – Hungary, Budapest proprogressione.com
forum kunstvereint e.V. / Consol Theatre – Germany, Gelsenkirchen consoltheater.de

[Music] so I come from the music sector I  worked as a music programmer for quite a   long time in Central Europe and as a tour manager  as well and I founded the organization called The   Green Room in 2016 uh to support musicians and  uh music professionals on environmental issues  

Specifically but also taking um I would say  a holistic approach to the questions so also   integrating economical issues social issues and  uh trying to have also um yeah more more of a   systemic view on on the question and also really  taking care of not putting too much pressure on  

The artist directly but also think about the  responsibility of the whole music sector but   also the cultural arts and culture sector so just  in short we work with artists and bands directly   especially around low carbon touring and we also  support them on specific needs meaning looking  

At the digital Alternatives uh for their music  practices are looking at production of merch so it   really depends also of the of the artists that we  work with and where they are in their career uh we  

Don’t work with beon or with Taylor Swift we work  more with I would say Independent Artists and more   midur uh artists and in order also to scale up uh  and I think it’s the same idea that we that you  

Have behind the cake project uh we work also with  different EU projects and networks um so either we   conduct them ourselves or we work as a partner or  associated experts called experts uh with the with  

Some of those projects uh currently and I will  give you a few examples of uh of those projects   during my presentation and so Eloise asked me to  give you some insights on some Mobility action   plans uh that we have been co-developing uh with  some organizations and some networks uh I most of  

My examples will be from the music sector but we  also work with on the Move Network so I will speak   about that and that’s more a global vision of  what Mobility is and it concerns all the creative  

Sector uh and all the uh all the Arts in terms of  Mobility uh so some of those initiatives are being   conducted right now and some others are more in  the experiment space um and I took one which is uh  

At the origin more of a individual uh initiative  from a music venue that then um had some kind of   The Snowball Effect on the partners and also on  on the Jazz sector in France and now in Europe  

And the other one is more coming from a collective  experience through also an Erasmus Plus project   which is now having some influence on networks  and also on the on the members um so my first uh   example as I mentioned comes from a music venue  uh which is called L Periscope which is based  

In France and that’s uh really an initiative that  wasn’t motivated at first for environmental reason   um they started to tackle their environmental  impact more in order to I would say assess some   of the risks that they are facing and also  looking at the fact that they receive a lot  

Of Public Funding they thought they had also  a responsibility uh to work on this subject   in link with their with their own uh economical  model um and it’s a special context because it’s   a and it will relate to the presentation that  ELO was giving you because it’s a venue which  

Is in the city center very well connected to  public transport and working in the mostly in   the Jazz and improvised music sector so inviting  quite a lot of international artists and having   very strong links uh with the US for instance um  and really having this Focus to to maintain the  

Heart of their work but to try to do it better and  to think about their their impact in a different   way um they are also involved in uh different EU  projects so that was one of the starting points  

I would say for them to to look at this and this  question of their impact so I’m not going to go   into details into this because it will also have  some similarities with what elois was telling you  

And I will also send you some links after if you  want to look deeper into the different studies   but basically what the venue started to do for  their Mobility plan um the first step was uh   really to start to calculate because only a clear  understanding of the emissions that are created by  

The venue can allow to have a critical reflection  on the opportunities to reduce the emissions and   also to ensure that the venue contributes to the  Paris agreement and now also to the green deal uh   targets so uh it’s not a surprise what came out  that Mobility comes first also mobility of the  

Of the artist mobility of the the the audience  coming to to The Venue even if it’s a venue in   a city center and also the mobility of the staff  either every day going to work or uh because of  

All the the international projects so you have  quite a lot of Mobility uh within France but   also within Europe um regarding uh the different  projects that they are coordinating um even if the   the venue is in the city center and very well  connected to to public transport uh it showed  

That for instance even if just one person from  the staff comes to work by car every day it can   have a real impact on the on the carbon footprint  of the venue and that was one of the things that  

They wanted to fine-tune so because you can have a  general idea looking at different studies of what   what are the main impacts from a music venue but  when you want to fine-tune the stat the strategies  

That you can have you have to look more precisely  into the numbers and into all the levels that you   might have um the second uh step for them was  to uh calculate also on the global um on on  

European scale uh and to compare with venues and  with festivals that they work with so they took   more or less the same typology as the shift uh  for small venues big big venues small festivals   big festivals and in the countryside or in city  centers also to have a better understanding of  

The impact of the Jazz and improvised music  sector in Europe the idea behind this is also   to show show that uh even if we recognize that  we do have an impact which is quite significant   it’s also uh very small compared to other uh  sectors of the music industry uh especially  

When we talk about gigantic festivals with 100  200,000 people coming and especially when they   have International Festival goers and also uh  looking at different practices that we might   have in the music industry obviously here we are  not dealing with artists traveling uh by private  

Jets or with the 10 or 20 trucks as we can see in  other in other sectors so it was also this idea   behind to prevent the risks but also to show that  this sector maybe has a little less impact than  

The other and also has already some uh practices  which are uh I would say environmentally friendly   but in order to do that also uh they needed some  uh tailor made tools and um oh yeah I will sorry  

So another I will show you a very nice Excel  document to give you so it’s not very uh maybe   the most sexiest tool that but uh to decline this  uh these actions that they they wanted to take one  

Of them was to think about touring uh when when  they invite one artist to play at their venue U   they they can decrease the the impact of the of  the artist coming to The Venue by helping them to  

Have a more coherent tour and even helping them  to find other gigs around uh but in order also   to to monitor this and to show that this can have  a positive impact uh they needed this tool to to  

Be able to calculate so basically it’s a it’s  quite simple Excel sheet where you enter all   the steps of the tour and then you enter uh any  means of transportation should it be by Train by  

Car uh uh van taxi or if it’s a a flight also and  then you have the total of CO2 emissions and this   takes into account the whole tour of the artist  so for instance this was an artist coming from  

Chicago and they put in all the dates including  the one that happened at L Periscope in y but also   to make the difference between the fact that if  you invite an artist just for one gig they will  

Come from Chicago to Leon and go back and here  you can really share the carbon footprint with   the different venues so this is one of the of the  main uh actions that is taken by L Periscope but  

Also by the whole European project uh which was  called Footprints and now there’s a new step and   it’s called better life so the idea is to have  the artist tour more and to have a collaboration   between the all the programmers which sounds uh  probably very basic and very uh yeah it should  

Be common sense but actually it is not and it  was one of the the biggest difficulties of this   project was actually to have the programmers work  together and decide to have coherent tours on a   specific teritory um another way of also decline  the um this objectives into a concrete plan was  

To work with uh carbon budget so I don’t know if  you are familiar with this uh and maybe sorry if   Louise you you talked a bit about this in your  introduction maybe I missed some part but just  

Very shortly this is to show you like the amount  of carbon that we can still spend uh in during   the rest of our lives if we want to respect the  objectives of the Paris agreement so if we have  

Some numbers if we want to stay at one.5 degrees  of of global warming uh and uh if we want to stay   under two degrees and the idea there is to uh the  same way you work with your financial budgets so  

You will decide to invite this and this artist  because of artistic reasons but also because of   financial budget that you have available it’s  you work the same way with your carbon budget   so since you made the calcul a of your footprint  you know that every year you have to decrease by  

Let’s say 5% uh your carbon footprint in order to  uh align yourself with a Paris agreement and stay   at a certain level of heating um the problem was  that when L Periscope did this calculation and  

This approach they realized as we do in society  that it’s impossible uh to stay at a carbon budget   to respect the 1.5 uh objective so they decided to  go with the two degrees scenario and that’s one of  

The difficulties that we know that if we really  want to respect those objectives we have to cut a   lot of our activities and at some point it’s also  a matter of decision so it doesn’t mean that this  

Should be the first uh objective but it’s just  another uh tool for decision making where you have   artistic uh you have economical but you also have  environmental factors that come into the decision   making and in order to do that for instance uh  you can decide that you are going to invite one  

Artist coming from Chicago because this is very  important for you because it’s an artist that   you’ve been working for a long time because they  have the audience in your Venue or whatever reason   that you might have but then since you do that  and it has a significant impact on your carbon  

Footprint then maybe you will somehow compensate  by either having this artist having other gigs in   your region or working more also on the side with  younger artists or having this artist stay longer   and do a residency or do some master classes so  there are different strategies like that that  

Can be um adopted to to work in this uh Direction  and just coming back to that also one part which   is also very significant for the impact of the of  a venue but also a festival as Eloise was showing  

Is the the mobility of the audience and this is  very difficult it’s a subject that hasn’t been   addressed very much by the music sector for a long  time and now it’s a it’s coming uh I would say to  

The Forefront thanks also to the numbers that came  from the from the the shift reports and also some   other studies but it’s very difficult because it’s  not like even if you have public transportation   going to your Venue or to your Festival it’s not  uh meaning that your audience is going to use  

Them of course so one of the work that is being  done now more and more is on Mobility survey so   asking your audience uh of course which means of  transportation what is the budget for them uh how  

They come to to your Festival but also looking  more into sociological learnings I mean why do   they come by car even if there is a bus uh for  instance it’s very common at festivals that people  

Will tell you oh I don’t know when I will come  back and uh it’s very difficult for me to share   with someone else my car or I need to have my car  because I’m leaving my stuff in it or because I’m  

Transporting uh a lot of beers that we’re going to  to drink at the festival so all those aspects also   which are more uh personal or sociological have  to be um also studied in this and this is one of  

The of the learnings also from from this project  that we are now developing within the next step so   which is called better life and the second thing  the second learning that we had also from uh the  

Footprints project was that we kind of started to  change the strategy uh before we were working with   the artists and with the agents to build more uh  coherent tours and this didn’t really work I mean   it worked on certain territories in Europe which  already had this habit of working together but on  

Some others like for instance in in in Poland we  had a lot of issues to have other programmers uh   because mostly because of the I would say ego uh  issues with programmers that really want just to   invite their own artist and they don’t want to  share a programmation with any other artist so  

Uh the new strategy that we adopted for that was  to work more locally and to build what we call   local hubs meaning that for instance if we work  in Poland we might work also in a in a regional  

Way so it can be also with Czech Republic  with Slovakia depending on on where we are   in Poland and then to think more of um training  uh the venues and the festival organizers there   and to have them already having some kind of a  package when they invite an artist meaning that  

They propose to them like two or three different  gigs or maybe a time of residency or a time of   cultural projects or meetings local musicians so  it’s not the artist who’s going to look for gigs   but it’s more the venue is already offering a  more coherent tour and having the artist come  

For a longer time because also because of the  infrastructure it’s not always possible for the   artist to come by train or have a lower carbon  means of transportation so sometimes they have   to fight but the idea is really to to have  them stay longer and to have more meaningful  

Tools um the second thing so it’s quite a lot of  information I’ve put that on one one slide not to   take too long but this is um coming from the work  that we are doing so with on the Move network uh  

Which I guess most of you know which is working  on Mobility um and they were part of a Nas plus   project also called shift nothing to do with  the think tank but shift culture project and   they decided to create um what they call the shift  Echo guidelines and a green certification which is  

Tailor made for European networks so now it’s in  a phase of experimentation uh it was developed   during the time of the of the project and now they  are testing so there’s a few European networks   which are working on that for the first year and  they’re also being trained they are collaborating  

With creative carbon Scotland which is a an  organization a bit like Julie’s bicycle in the   UK but based in Scotland and which has been  working also on supporting the the Scottish   cultural sector on environmental issues since  a long time and working quite a lot on European  

Projects um since many years um and this uh  the of course because it’s European networks   Mobility is a central issue uh but it’s not only  focusing on just the means of transportation and  

Maybe I wanted to share this with you maybe some  of you saw it it it comes from the recent um study   that was commissioned by the European Union on  Greening the creative um uh uh program uh so the   the European creative culture program sorry uh  and I personally find this definition of green  

Mobility very problematic and and I know I’m not  the only one because it’s really focuses only on   on the means of transportation in order to seek to  to reduce the environmental impact and we do know   working with different um networks that Mobility  is actually way more than just the the means of  

Transportation that you will use and that’s why  also we decided to to work more on the decision   making tool and to look at the different aspects  of the mobility so this is one of the examples  

But um on the on the left side in light blue  gray uh you have actually this is something   that we started to implement at the beginning of  the when I found it the organization in 2016 in  

Order to decide if it was um meaningful to go to  an event or not or to decide on a collaboration   or on a specific project we have this intern  internal questionnaire where we ask ourselves   those uh different questions that I listed here  uh looking at an event for instance so uh if we  

Are going to an event just for one uh day or for  several days how many people are going there is it   necessary for two or three people to go there  or can we go just one person um are there any  

Possibilities to have meetings with other people  other potential Partners on on the spot or not   um and also very practical like to compare the  price for train tickets uh duration uh compared   to plane compared to other means of transport a  and also looking at the different local impacts  

So uh first is there a possibility to have this  meeting online does it make sense uh are there   any reflection of the events you are attending on  their environmental impact and also what you can   bring back is there a reciprocity with this are  you just going there to to present a project and  

And you will not bring anything back to your own  Community or is there so these are of course it’s   something that you can tailor made also for your  own needs and it’s just a tool to help you to make  

The decision but it’s actually very um interesting  because it brings internal discussions uh within   the organization or within the venue and on the  right uh this is a more like more constructed   way of uh working on this question here that  that we prepared for for on the Move Network  

Within the framework of the green certification  So within the green certification you have to   uh write your own um um travel policy and you  have to decline it in a in a action plan for to  

Lower your your impact uh looking at travel and  looking at Mobility so here we are we we tailor   made also this this questionnaire for them and  uh basically so you don’t see the colors there   but depending on what what’s your answer uh  if you have more than so you have some answers  

Which are highlighted in Orange and if you have  more than 60% of orange coming it means that you   need to reassess uh your decision because you you  answer too many I would say bad answers in terms   of environmental impact and it’s good that you  rethink it so rethink about yeah maybe how many  

People are going there and if it’s really making  sense and if there’s real added value and what we   can see is like this really helps to rethink but  also to provoke maybe different Reflections and   that’s coming from another Network that we’re  work work working with but they have um it’s a  

Network of French uh singing so they have a lot  of connections with French speaking Canada for   instance and they are used to inviting a lot of  professionals from uh French Canada because they   think that they are going to program the bands  that they are presenting so a lot of showcases  

Where you have all those um professionals  coming sometimes it’s 30 40 professionals   coming from Canada and now they decided to have  a working group to reassess the need for that is   it really efficient does it mean mean that the  bands that are presented are having some gigs  

After the showcases in Canada or is it just that  all those professionals are coming to France they   are enjoying their time they are getting maybe  drunk at some events but in the end is there   a real need for that and also rethinking about  going to professional events because sometimes  

We really think about the mobility of artists  mobility of audience but we tend to forget our own   mobilities as professionals and sometimes maybe  also reassessing like does it makes sense to go   every year to uh the festival or to WX or to some  of those Events maybe going there only once every  

Two or three years maybe having a trusted um group  of programmers that are everywhere in the world   that can be some kind of your ambassador to some  events these are some some of the reflections that   are also taking place and um being stimulated I  would say that those very simple at the beginning  

And practical tools but it’s also to emphasize  the fact that just starting at some point to   just calculate can really have a lot of uh very  positive effects on the organizations and on the   way of of thinking about um the environmental  impact and the responsibilities um so that’s a  

Bit short and I I hope it wasn’t too dense but  it was just to give you some some examples and   I think ELO we have a little bit of time for  questions uh if we have if you have any or I  

Can give you also some more examples if you want  to to focus on some specific topics sorry I might   be the climate do missed this this morning um  ups and downs you know the kind of more positive I had this thought about you know it all  sounds really nice dividing by the artist  

Impact by inviting them to more festivals  but by that don’t you just produce even more   traveling and I know that technically the you  know them traveling from the States to Europe   and that being not for only one cultural event  but for multiple cultural events that makes it  

More meaningful but at the same time if you look  at the pure matth they travel to Europe they do   one show but from that one show they travel to  another show and then to another show but they   maybe not wouldn’t have trouble to so like from  a climate perspective like you’re reducing your  

Own how to say um you make your impact feel  as bad but you’re still adding additional CO2   to the atmosphere by producing more events I  don’t know I just okay made me feel that all   these Solutions are maybe like fractional to the  to the issue at hand but you know might just be  

That I’m having a negative morning okay I  I quite understand what you’re saying but um the hypothesis behind that is that we we  still want to uh have culture from everywhere   we still want to have access to culture that is  not closed by our home so that means that we are  

Still make inter International artists coming and  basically if you have to to come from Japan or us   or even some places Europe in Europe you will  have to take the plane so how how do we do the  

MS between this urge to to have um to mix culture  to exchange and uh the uh climate change and the   carbon Footprints and the only stuff that we  can do is by divid this carbon footprint by  

Different venues but it means that if uh for for  the example of Gwen if I have an artist that is   coming from Chicago to Paris then from Paris the  deal is that it cannot takes the plane again of  

Course otherwise it will just make his carbon  fpr bigger and bigger and bigger so of course   it means that there is the first uh trip that  is by plane and then you have to use really   low carbon means of testation which means train  which means no um very light tenography which  

Means maybe Recreation of a scenography uh in  different venues there is also um it’s a deal   we we cannot have everything you cannot come from  Far places and then take again the plane and have  

Big trucks of course if you want to be uh if you  want to match your artistic um desire and your environmental uh engagement of course because  there is there is a trick it mean that your   trips inside Europe after coming for America  will be longer you will take a lot of time  

To go to Italy to go to uh Eastern Europe to  go maybe to Norway I don’t know but the deal   is you cannot do like your European tour  in 10 days no if you want to to be um to   to be a a climate change activist and  uh International artist the of [Music]

Course yes Rosanna and maybe just to add another  aspect when we’re going away from the only climate   protective perspective on the organizing of Toth  I also think that local Hub makes sense for the   social sustainability and the economic sustain  ility so taking for example the consor theater  

When they organizing so local theater festivals  and they’re proposing the same artists to a little   theater who cannot afford normally to organize  this tour we’re making those artistic performances   accessible to other people in the region and this  for me is also a very important aspect of thinking  

In those local hubs to organize venues and also  the other aspect I think we saw last week about   the making the local economy work for me it’s  also a very important aspect but this is one of  

My of my more positive opinion but then also agree  with you matate that we still have to compromise   between our desire for cultural activities and  still have to recognize that it would be more   sustainable not to have them but only from the  climate protection VI when you’re taking the  

Perspective of a more social equity or cultural  sustainability I think we still have to do them yes uh we will um explore it more  next week next week we will have Airman   lugan which had um um a big venue which  was called where to land it’s a European  

Project which gather a lot of cultural actors  in to tackle the issues of climate change how   cultures uh does its transition so he will um  he will uh translate for us the main points of   uh the venue that happens last year and then  we will have Tristan Tristan is coming from  

Uh the VD theater of loan where they did an  experiment with with an artist on um uh lowc   carbon footprint uh experiment and how and how  the and how it changed the way of programming the   theater but also the way didn’t change anything  after all so it will be interesting to have its

Insight