Talking sustainability – with Chichester Festival Theatre
Audience Insight Manager, Caroline Aston, takes us behind-the-scenes of Chichester Festival Theatre's award-winning sustainability work
Chichester Festival Theatre (CFT) has been weaving sustainability into its work – both on stage and off – for well over a decade.
In October 2024 they won the first-ever UK Theatre Award for Excellence in Sustainability– for their many efforts to tread more lightly on the planet; ranging from offsetting ticket-buyers' travel to greening their productions.
It's great that the work being done by CFT has been recognised and celebrated like this. But I also love the fact that this award helps to promote what's possible – encouraging other organisations to incorporate sustainability actions into their day-to-day work.
And taking action is important. Not only for our planet – but for audiences too.
72% of audiences think cultural organisations have a responsibility to influence society about the climate emergency, according to Indigo's Act Green Report 2024.
Supercool has been CFT's digital partner for over 10 years now (blimey!), and I'm always impressed by how openly and clearly they share their sustainability work with audiences – in and around the venue, through their website, and through their comms in general.
So I asked Audience Insight Manager, Caroline Aston, to take us behind-the-scenes of CFT's sustainability journey so far.
72% of audiences think cultural organisations have a responsibility to influence society about the climate emergency
Indigo's Act Green Report, 2024
How did you get started sharing CFT's sustainability work online?
It’s really tricky to separate online from physical – to me it is all interconnected as part of a wider objective and mission. When CFT underwent a huge capital project in 2012-14, it was done with sustainability in mind and that carried over into future operations.
Then during the pandemic, I think we all started to connect with nature more – going on our daily walks, appreciating the quieter roads and skies and lower levels of pollution – and I personally started to look at ways to be more sustainable.
It was during this time that I became aware of how audience travel was the biggest contributor to our carbon footprint at CFT, so we started to look at ways to build in the opportunity for audiences to offset their travel to the Theatre. I think this was one of the first times our sustainable initiatives had more of a presence online. Alongside this, we created our Green at CFT webpage.
When you're learning and experimenting yourself, it's normal to have worries about getting things wrong, not doing enough, being accused of greenwashing etc. because measuring environmental impact is so new and imperfect. Have you had any negative feedback?
I had a chat about this with Angela, our Theatre Green Book Co-ordinator, and we’re not aware of having had any negative feedback. Last year we ran some community feedback sessions – the response around sustainability was that the community recognised it was one of our core values and they trust that we are genuinely committed to this and doing what we say.
We’re a platform within the community and we’re here to learn. We are honest about our progress and the challenges we face. So if we get feedback that we can do things more effectively, we don’t take it as a criticism but instead as an opportunity to do things better.
What input and support do you have from across your team, and the wider organisation?
Being sustainably minded is one of our core values and CFT recognises that it’s important to put it front and centre of everything we do. By training staff in Carbon Literacy, instead of having to find time separately to focus on sustainability, it becomes part of the process when carrying out a task.
What’s been the most rewarding sustainability-related thing to work on, or see come to fruition?
It has to be seeing sustainability being embedded in our everyday operations – from creating a show to Theatre Green Book standards, down to how we handle waste and ensuring nothing goes to landfill, and also being aware of our digital footprint and the effect this can have on the environment.
Working with Theatre Green Book now means we have a common language across the theatre industry and have a method to measure our impact and communicate this more widely.
We recently recorded this video about how we’re working with Theatre Green Book, alongside some of our other initiatives.
On the other hand, is there anything you’ve tried that’s not gone to plan?!
We introduced branded reusable plastic cups in 2022 and they looked great. But the stock dwindled quite quickly as they were great souvenirs of a visit to CFT!
The current version is no less functional – but perhaps less desirable as a keepsake!
Chichester Festival Theatre
What sustainability-related content resonates most with your audiences?
We’re learning how to share our progress in a way that reflects our pride in the work, without suggesting we have all the answers.
On socials we had a great reaction when we won the UK Theatre Award for Excellence in Sustainability, and Instagram in particular loves it when we post pictures of our wildflower meadow and other activity around the park which we are lucky to have on our doorstep.
What one piece of advice would you give to other organisations who are early on in their 'sustainability journey'?
I’m not sure we realised we were going on a journey – it just evolved and felt like the natural thing to do (no pun intended!). We are constantly learning, finding new ways and paths and putting that knowledge into future activities.
My advice would be – you don’t have to be perfect! And until you start tracking and actually doing things, you’re not learning.
It’s absolutely fine to make mistakes and not know the answers to everything, and there is a really supportive community out there to help you on the journey.
Thanks Caroline! And thanks to Chichester Festival Theatre for making sustainability a priority, and for being so open about all the work you're doing. Congratulations on the award, keep up the ace work – and I'm looking forward to seeing more and more cultural organisations taking action on sustainability, and sharing what they learn along the way.