Arts Council England Programme

Ben Darlington WMT

Arts Council England Environmental Programme

Julie’s Bicycle works in partnership with Arts Council England to deliver an Environmental Programme, built on a shared vision of the transformative role of culture to tackle the climate crisis.

Watch the JB and Arts Council England animation

Programme strands and activity

Designed for Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisations, this ambitious programme aims to reduce environmental impacts and drive action across the arts and culture sector.

The programme, first launched in 2012, builds literacy, confidence and leadership skills to give cultural professionals the agency to act on climate change and champion justice and fairness. The Arts Council England 2020-30 Strategy, Let’s Create, is built around four Investment Principles, including ‘Environmental Responsibility.

Read our latest annual environmental report

The programme offers:

  • Events and workshops
  • Free CG Tools carbon calculators, designed by Julie’s Bicycle, specifically for the creative industries
  • Environmental resources: guides, factsheets, case studies, webinars, reports and toolkits
  • Reporting resources for NPOs
  • Facilitating and hosting national networks, focusing on leadership and peer exchange
  • A helpdesk for grant holders
  • Audits and evaluations
  • Mentoring
  • Funding Watch, a resource of current funding opportunities
  • Programme strands: Spotlight, Accelerator and The Colour Green Lab
Explore our resource hub
light night Tom Arber

Spotlight Programme

The Spotlight group – 30 NPOs across 80 sites – is the only cluster of large infrastructure cultural organisations working together on a Science-based targets pathway to net zero. The group is aiming to achieve measurable reductions in line with the Paris Agreement: limiting global warming to well-below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.

accelerator

Accelerator Programme

The Accelerator Programme works with cohorts of up to ten organisations to advance their sustainable practice and share insights with their peers and the wider sector. The programme looks at everything from touring models and audience engagement to design and supply chains, income generation and governance.

ian MPG

The Colour Green Lab

The Colour Green Lab is an environmental knowledge and skills programme, supporting cultural practitioners and artists of colour to lead environmental action.

Reporting resources for NPOs

To support annual reporting, we also provide tailored resources for NPOs.

This year’s practical reporting webinars will take place in May and June 2022, and can be booked here.

Environmental Reporting for NPOs Reporting FAQs

Contact the team

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PICTURES: (from top to bottom) Header – Zadie Xa performing at We Make Tomorrow, photo credit: Ben Darlington; // Light Night at Opera North, photo: Tom Arber; // Accelerator Programme residential training, photo: James Allan; // Common Ground the launch of The Colour Green podcast – photo by Angela Dennis; // JB team at We Make Tomorrow, photo: James Allan

Our Work

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Resource Library

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