Dundee Rep & Scottish Dance Theatre Environmental Plan 2021-2022
August 2021 – March 2022 to allow us to incorporate into business planning.
1. Strategic Planning –
In the COP26 year, and with the Scottish Government aim to be carbon neutral by 2045, Dundee Rep and Scottish Dance Theatre will put in place the building blocks to allow us to move towards sustainability considerations being embedded in all we do.
Over the next year we will define, inform, investigate, identify and control the path to reducing our carbon footprint and create awareness of a sustainable future. Environmental considerations will be contained within our business plan, with SMART targets, and a clear understanding of any sustainability standards which we will be following.
Action plan for this year, strategic plans by next summer.
2. Informed Team –
We will undertake environmental training so that we understand our environmental impact and where our actions should be focused for biggest impact. By ensuring we have an informed staff, board and stakeholders, it will give us the ability to prioritise our actions.
3. Collaboration and Promotion -
Aim to be aware of best-practice and continue to lead in the sector, informing ourselves and driving and supporting improvements in our carbon usage. We will collaborate and share learning’s with stakeholders with similar goals.
As lead partner of one of the seven Climate Beacons, we will work with other companies within Tayside to consider how the cultural organisations can collaborate to help communities respond to the climate crisis.
We currently have several ambassadors that make up our green team, and our staff is committed to our plan, but as a theatre we have several different avenues that we can reach out to, our theatre “friends and family”, suppliers, contractors, freelancers etc. Our aim is to get support from all avenues and to open up dialogue to discuss ways we can reduce our Co2 emissions further and have challenging conversations on topics such as international travel and the impact on the environment and get ideas of how we can reduce impact.
We will use social media and our website, to give a transparent and simple communication to our audiences and the general public, that will highlight all our green wins and to influence them to do the same. Our in house screens will issue information of how we produce low carbon performances.
4. Carbon Planning and reduction –
By carbon planning we can set targets to continue to reduce our carbon foot print. We will investigate how we might incorporate carbon budgeting into our business models.
Gas and Electric
At present 81% of the carbon emissions are generated from Gas and Electricity. We are currently monitoring our energy use and have in place several different measures that allow us to keep our usage low. Over the period of this action plan we will investigate ways of removing fossil fuels from our building by use of renewable energy.
Procurement, Life Cycle and Waste
We will also look at procurement and waste streams, reducing consumption and use where possible. We intend to challenge our suppliers & contractors to meet our own environmental and sustainable criteria. We will ensure all our suppliers have their own environmental policy. We will encourage our show designers to create stage set, props and costume from recycled materials and consider adopting best-practice standards.
Transportation
Probably one of the hardest topics to look for solutions, as touring is one of the theatres main routes of reaching out to audiences. We intend to consider other options such as digital performances and slow travel such as using trains and boats instead of planes. We will ask our staff to use active travel methods. We intend on promoting public transport to our audiences and remind our audiences of cycle storage at the Rep. Our own in house transportation will be recorded and monitored.