Creative Climate Tools | Julie's Bicycle | Sustainability Strategy Tools

The Creative Climate Tools (CC Tools) are a free carbon calculator and Beyond Carbon impact tracker that enables artists and cultural organisations to track their environmental impact, record progress and make strategic changes. The Tools were developed by Julie’s Bicycle to empower cultural organisations to take impactful action on the climate crisis, and play a vital role in shaping a sustainable future for the arts.

Launched in 2009, the Creative Climate Tools (formally known as Creative Green Tools) were the first of their kind. They are globally recognised as the leading online environmental reporting tools designed specifically for the arts and culture sector. Since the Tools re-launch in 2021…

Over 2,000 organisations across more than 20 countries have measured their impact and tracked their progress using the Creative Climate Tools.

By reporting your carbon footprint and reviewing your impact Beyond Carbon, you join a growing creative climate movement. Your contribution adds to the public’s understanding how the cultural community is taking action.

Log in to the tools

What can the Creative Climate Tools measure?

The Tools help organisations record, measure and understand the impacts of venues, offices, tours, projects, events or festivals and track a range of different impact areas including energy use, water consumption, waste, travel, freight and materials. In addition to this, they also include the interactive Beyond Carbon checklist to record environmental action beyond emissions, telling a richer story and prompting further change.

The Tools also include features such as a Return-on-Investment calculator, a carbon budget setting feature and a forecasting tool to plan for the impacts of your projects.

Support with your carbon footprint reporting

Below we have broken the reporting process down into four simple steps, and signposted resources to help you as you go:

1: Collect information
Whether you are reporting as an organisation or individual, on a project basis or overall activity, the Creative Climate Tools will support you to measure your impacts and decided on what action to take next. The first step of this journey is collecting the data needed for your carbon footprint:
- Identify your activities – Start by identifying which activities your organisation takes part in and needs to measure. Have a look at our “What are Buildings and Projects? And which footprint type should I pick?” FAQ.
- Engage stakeholders with information – You will not always have direct access to data readily available so make sure you liaise and create contacts with those who have the information that you need. For example, your Facilities Manager for utilities or your Travel Agent for business travel.
- Collect the correct data – Make sure that you are collecting the correct data points so that the tools can convert your activity into emissions. Explore the Creative Climate Tools or our Data collection Template to work out what you need to collect for your different impact areas and use the information icons above the label names to find out where to collect this data.
- Measure what you can – Do not worry about getting a complete picture of your emissions the first time around. It is important to focus on the most significant impact areas over the small details. Momentum over perfection. Your data completeness will build up over time as data points become easier to gather.
Check out our offline data collection template to help you get started:

DATA COLLECTION TEMPLATE
2: Enter your data
Once you have identified what you need to measure and started collecting information, you can begin to enter your data into the CC Tools Footprints and Beyond Carbon.
- Footprints are where you can enter the data related to your activities that can be can converted into emissions.
- Beyond Carbon is where you can track what you are doing around sustainability that goes beyond the numbers. Organisations are engaged in all sorts of activities further than tracking emissions such as programming work exploring the climate crisis and working on local projects with their communities. Beyond Carbon gives you the opportunity to record and showcase the creative action you are taking.
We have lots of resources to support you with entering your data:

HOW-TO CC TOOLS BITESIZE VIDEOS

CC TOOLS FAQs

CREATIVE CLIMATE TOOLS USER GUIDES
3: Analyse results
Once you have finished completing your carbon footprint and press submit, your emissions will become visible in the CC Tools Results pages.

We encourage you to use these pages to interrogate your data:
- Use the Summary page to identify your organisation’s biggest impact areas
- Use the Compare page to pinpoint your emissions reductions/increases year-on-year
- Use the Details page for a more detailed view of your individual reports and to delve deeper into which activities are contributing the most emissions within your impact areas.
Understand where you can make changes that reduce your footprint the most.

Watch our Submission, Results & Beyond Carbon Bitesize Video

Check out the latest annual report
4: Take action

Use your data to make an updated environmental action plan. Share your activities. Work out your next steps.

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND ACTION PLAN GUIDE

COMMUNICATING SUSTAINABILITY GUIDE

For further resources to support you with taking in action to reduce a particular impact or find sector-specific guidance, check out the CC Tools Links page.

Masque of Might, Opera North, image credit James Glossop

Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisations

If you are an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation or Investment Principle Support Organisation, find out more about reporting your data and the support on offer.

For bespoke advice, support and recommendations based on your findings, please contact our consultancy team who’ll be happy to help.

ACE NPO Reporting

Photo by Colin Tonks / Electric Pedals

BFI Funded Organisations

If you are a BFI funded organisation, you can find further guidance on how to report and take environmental action here.

BFI Environmental Impact Reporting

Creative Climate Tools partnerships

We can adapt the CC Tools for organisations that want to support their communities to reduce their environmental and carbon footprint. Further information on the Tools and e-learning expertise we can provide can be found here on our partnerships page.

Contact us for more information