Sustainability

Theatres, like all public buildings, have an impact on the environment and we must ensure that we as a sector rapidly reduce the impact of our business in order to respond to the climate emergency.

Environmental Principles

Theatres Trust has committed to five environmental principles to reshape our work and help to influence and improve the sector’s sustainability.

Theatre Green Book initiative

Groups and individuals across theatre have been talking for some time about how to make theatre more sustainable and working on blueprints to promote change. The Theatre Green Book aims to bring that thinking together into one place, and develop it as straightforward, practical advice on the first steps everyone should be taking to make productions, theatre buildings and front-of-house operations sustainable.

This ‘Green Book’ of guidance for sustainable theatre will focus on first steps: what everyone can and should be doing to change their practice now, but it will also map out paths ahead, indicating what further steps might be needed to reach a sustainable future quickly.

All three volumes have now been published in Beta form - Sustainable Productions, Sustainable Buildings and Sustainable Operations.

Theatres Trust is a project partner along with ABTT and Buro Happold. Paddy Dillon is the Green Book Co-ordinator.

Thanks to the following funders:

ABTT, Aecom, AHMM, Bristow Consulting, Buro Happold, Charcoalblue, English National Opera, Gardiner & Theobald, Glyndebourne Opera, Haworth Tompkins, Ingleton Wood, Laing O’Rourke,  National Theatre, Paddy Dillon Architect, Plann Ltd, Royal Opera House, Sadler's Wells, Scottish Opera, Stage Electrics, Theatreplan Ltd, Theatres Trust, the Wolfson Foundation.

Thanks to the following for their support of the Green Book:

Association for Lighting Production and Design, Community Leisure UK, Creative Carbon Scotland, Creu Cymru, Ecostage, Federation of Scottish Theatre, ITC, Julie's Bicycle, Scene Change, SiPA,  Society of British Theatre Designers, Society of London Theatre / UK Theatre, Stage Sight, Staging Change, Theatre and Dance NI.

Theatre Improvement Scheme in association with the Wolfson Foundation

It was initially imagined that the Theatre Improvement Scheme would have a different theme each year but there was such high demand in the second year when it was environmental sustainability, that this has become the focus of the scheme.

Initially running until 2020, we were delighted that the Wolfson Foundation renewed the partnership for a further three years, enabling us to suppport more theatres to become more sustainabile. 

Find out more about the Theatre Improvement Scheme.

Photo by Markus Spiske temporausch.com from Pexels