Useful links
Articles and Resources
Want to start your sustainability journey?
STAGES (Sustainable Theatre Alliance for a Green Environmental Shift)
Voices of Culture (VoC) Report: Culture and the UN Sustainable Development Goals
Our Experiments: A Radical International Collaboration
Key Events
04 January 2023
New Members Join ETC Green Theatre Committee
ETC is delighted to welcome Emmanuelle Lejuene, Environmental Advisor at Théâtre de Liège (Belgium), and also project manager of the STAGES project, to the committee.
She is joined by Lisa Burger, Director of Renew Culture, and formerly joint CEO and Executive Director of the National Theatre in London, and Paddy Dillon, Coordinator of the Theatre Green Book.
Opportunity
ETC Appoints Sustainability Advisor
Michaela Rýgrová, a member of the ETC Green Theatre Committee, and ETC's advisor on the large-scale international artistic project on sustainability and theatre, STAGES, has become ETC's Sustainability Advisor.
She will work in 1-1 meetings with ETC Member Theatres to offer advice and structured guidance on becoming sustainable theatres. This forms part of ETC's pledge to become a climate-neutral network by 2030.
ETC members can contact Michaela on sustainability@europeantheatre.eu Read more
7 November 2022
ETC Conference in Lisbon Highlights Philosophical & Environmental Need for Care
European theatres must rethink how they interact with staff, local communities and the environment in order to ensure society remains united, theatre professionals have been told.
Leading directors across the continent gathered at the European Theatre Convention (ETC) International Theatre Conference in Lisbon to hear how care is essential in theatres and productions to help face global challenges of inequality and insecurity.
They also discussed the importance of 'slowing down', and ensuring care is present in laws and regulations for artist working conditions that support everyone - in all their diversity - to fulfil their creative visions.
"The theatre can be a flood," said Alexander Zeldin, the writer and director who delivered the keynote artistic address at the conference. "Its waters seep into cracks unseen in our world, it irrigates life by giving us a chance to see it afresh. The flood is what allows us to go with new eyes across borders and boundaries that are set up by shame, politics, history, and economics." Read more
15 July 2022
ETC Joins STAGES, the International Sustainable Theatre Experiment
A group of leading theatres and academic organisations have embarked on an ambitious sustainability experiment in culture.
STAGES - Sustainable Theatre Alliance for a Green Environmental Shift, supported with 2 million Euros in co-funding from the European Union, will see 14 influential partners spend the next four years testing radical solutions to the biggest challenges posed by the climate crisis.
These include the carbon impact of international touring; Long- and short-term sustainable transformation: and dreaming of new creative processes.
The project comes as theatres urgently require new ways to become resilient and inclusive after two years of the pandemic and recognise the clear need to make up for lost time in implementing the 17 UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Read more
18 February 2022
ETC Urges Legislators to Take Steps Towards a Climate Neutral Theatre Sector
The European theatre community have made an unprecedented call for policymakers and politicians across the continent to make sweeping changes in support of a “resilient” theatre sector, fit for the future.
A new policy document has been released by the European Theatre Convention (ETC) network of theatres, which counts 42 theatres from 26 countries, urging Members of the European Parliament, the European Commission, and the Council of the European Union to support pioneering theatre “that is as diverse as our local communities.”
It adds that policymakers must take steps towards a climate-neutral and sustainable theatre sector” and continue to lead the way “towards accessible theatre in a post-Covid world.” Read more
24 September 2021
ETC Joins the International Climate Strike
ETC joined the climate strike in Berlin, the location of its head office at the Deutsches Theater, alongside an estimated 20,000 people – including young environmental campaigners Greta Thunberg and Luisa Neubauer.
1,400 such rallies are expected around the world ahead of the Cop26 climate summit, which many see as the last opportunity to limit temperature rises and collectively avoid climate ‘catastrophe’. Read more
15 June 2021
European Theatres Pledge to Go Climate Neutral by 2030
Major theatres in 25 European countries have made a promise to reduce their carbon emissions to at least zero by 2030 as part of a plan, coordinated by the European Theatre Convention (ETC), to create a “more sustainable, conscious, mindful and just future”.
Leading European Theatres have made an ambitious promise to completely eradicate their carbon emissions over the next decade.
The 46 theatres in the European Theatre Convention (ETC) network, drawn from 25 countries, have pledged to become climate neutral by 2030 – stressing that they will make changes to activity across their buildings and theatrical productions. Read more
11 June 2021
ETC Sustainable Action Code for Theatres
Creating now, a greener, more sustainable conscious and mindful just future by 2030.
We, theatres in Europe, are committed to measure, understand, reduce and offset our carbon footprint through information, mobilization and legislation on European level.
Theatres have the power to reach many people across society, to engage and initiate cultural debates. Creating a better and more equitable future is at the heart of our ‘recovery plan’ to overcome the Covid-19 crisis, providing resilience, all while reducing our impact on the climate crisis. We refer to the EU Green Deal and the Sustainability Goals of the United Nations to achieve a better and more sustainable sector by 2030.
ETC’s Sustainability Action Code for Theatres is the ambitious vision to create sustainable progress in Europe’s theatres by the end of this decade, aiming to reach a climate positive network and memberhip. It is based on the three basic pillars considering the social, economic and environmental transformation of our work for a more sustainable, diverse and just use of our resources, to create, present and share theatre made in Europe.
17 March 2021
ETC Green Theatre Committee Members Announced
This month, ETC held its first Green Theatre Committee meeting! The Committee members will develop strategic input for our next 3 year programme on social, economic and environmental sustainability, referring to the UN Sustainable Development Goals as targets to achieve by 2030 in theatres across Europe -- and as a show of sustainable progress.
Committee members:
Silvano Catufa, Technical and safety manager, Teatro Stabile di Torino (Italy)
Frank Holldack, Head of Design & Costume, Schauspielhaus Graz (Austria)
Joachim Klement, Artistic Director, Staatsschauspiel Dresden (Germany), ETC Board Delegate
Solenn Koç, Environmental Advisor, Théâtre de Liège (Belgium)
Michaela Rýgrová, Environmental Activities Coordinator, National Theatre Prague (Czech Republic)
Heidi Wiley, Executive Director, ETC.
Gunnar Will, Senior Energy Manager, & Juliane Becker, Project Manager, Adelphi, External Expert Consultants
12 February 2021
Launch of the ETC Green Theatre Committee
Following our last conference ‘Green Theatre’ in November, and the three workshops on green theatre practices in management, communication and biodiversity in December and January, we want to move to the action part in February.
The task of the committee is to develop and formulate a Sustainability Action Code for ETC Member Theatres to be presented at our next conference in June 2021. The code aims to - similar like the ‘Diversity in Action’ ETC code of conduct for ETC Member Theatres - serve as guideline for ETC’s network of Member Theatres to implement a sustainability strategy in each venue. The committee will meet from March to May in self-organised online meetings. It will be accompanied by ETC Board Member Joachim Klement (Staatschauspiel Dresden) and Heidi Wiley (ETC).
We want to act to make theatre continuously relevant, to be a sustainable public place in each community, to be a relevant art form to continuously stir and mirror societal debates, to imagine our future. We want to act to address environmental sustainability using the role of theatres to meet the objectives of the SDG’s and the European Green Deal, driving social innovation and contribute to the cultural shift needed for sustainable transformation of contemporary society. We want to act to create the sustainable transition of our sector.
Committee members will be announced soon.
21 January 2021
Wild Spaces: Action Areas for Sustainable Theatres
What strategic action can theatres take to become sustainable, and have an immediate impact on local biodiversity? This workshop was facilitated by ETC and NABU (Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union).
10 December 2020
Sustainable Cultural Management & Green Communication workshops
ETC was delighted to offer members the opportunity to participate in one of two parallel workshops on sustainable practices in cultural organisations. The sessions are facilitated by ETC and experts from Julie’s Bicycle.
25 November 2020
ETC International Theatre Conference, 'Green Theatre'
Climate change and environmental deterioration are existential threats to our future – this isn’t new. Nevertheless, almost all sectors, including the arts, are lagging behind on effectively implementing the sustainable development goals (SDG’s) as formulated by the UN years ago. What can theatres do to reduce their carbon footprints? Why and how do we need to act and change our ways of producing, working and travelling?
Speakers included:
Barbara Gessler, Head of Unit Creative Europe, Directorate General for Education and Culture, European Commission
Jörg-Andreas Krüger, President of NABU
Catriona Patterson, Transformation of Culture, Programme Lead at Creative Carbon Scotland
Dr Reet Aus, Fashion Designer and Environmental Activist
Vincent Baudriller and Caroline Barneaud, Director and Director of Artistic and International Projects, respectively, at Vidy-Lausanne Theatre
Annette Gerlach, ARTE journalist.
12 November 2020
European Theatre Forum
Day 2: Environmental Sustainability & the EU Cultural Policies / “Greening” the Theatre & Performing Arts Sector.
The second day of the Forum addressed the urgent topic of climate change and environmental sustainability and the role the sector can and must play towards a fair, green transition. Young voices were heard and their words led into two focussed sessions, looking at sustainability from the perspectives of policy making, science and culture, but also through the lens of good practice from the theatre and performing arts sector.
Speakers included:
Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Culture, Education and Youth
Alison Tickell, Director of Julie’s Bicycle
MEP Laurence Farreng (FR – Renew) & MEP Niklas Nienaß (DE - Greens)
Tara Runze & Dario Vecchi, Activists at Fridays for Future
Natalie Driemeyer, Dramaturg, Curator, WORLD-CLIMATE-THEATRE
Ben Twist, Director, Creative Carbon Scotland
Eva Johansone, Culture Journalist, Project Coordinator of Art. Climate. Transition, New Theatre Institute of Latvia
Watch the recorded session here.
