Environmental Sustainability

We believe that the culture and creative sector can play a key role in meeting Scotland’s ambitious net zero target. Learn more about the Environmental Sustainability Funding Criteria.

The world is in a climate emergency. Urgent and collective action is required to keep the global temperature rise below 1.5°C and to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Culture and creativity have a vital role to play in helping address the climate emergency and contribute to a more environmentally sustainable Scotland.

We believe that the culture and creative sector can play a key role in meeting Scotland’s ambitious net zero target. We want to see the organisations and individuals we fund become agents of change in the fair and equitable transformation of Scotland to a thriving, net-zero, climate-ready nation.

How do we define what Environmental Sustainability means?

Tackling the climate emergency can only be achieved through transformational, rather than incremental, change. Transformation requires both climate change mitigation (the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions) and climate change adaptation (how we adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change).

We believe that change must be fair and equitable, based on principles of climate justice. We recognise the powerful role that the sectors we support have in influencing society through their programming focus, drawing on the potential for arts and creativity to help everyone to envisage alternative futures.

More broadly, we need to ensure environmental impacts are central to developing sustainable business models in the creative and cultural sectors.

Learn more about the Environmental Sustainability Funding Criteria