The Green Arts Initiative in Ireland is an extension of the Green Arts Initiative operated by Creative Carbon Scotland and aims to provide Irish arts organisations with the resources and support to help build a green Irish arts community. Run by Theatre Forum and Catríona Fallon, under the guidance of Creative Carbon Scotland, the Green Arts Initiative in Ireland aims to:

• Support arts organisations with practical advice on reducing their carbon footprint and overall environmental impacts.
• Provide arts organisations with opportunities to enhance their sustainability competencies through training and networking.
• Collect information about what organisations are currently doing to improve their sustainability.

To date we have focused on conducting pilot projects which give us insights into the environmental impacts of the arts sector with regard to particular activities.

Most recently, in May 2023, we completed the Greener Touring Project with six performing arts companies: Irish National Opera, Fishamble, Druid, Fidget Feet, Catherine Young Dance, and Ballet Ireland.  Check out this post to read about the findings from that project…

Our first pilot project, began in 2020, with our Greening Venues Pilot Project which allowed us to assess the environmental impacts of seven venues throughout the country: Pavilion in Dun Laoighaire, axis in Ballymun, the Taibhdhearc and Town Hall Theatre in Galway, Belltable in Limerick, Hawk’s Well Theatre in Sligo, and VISUAL in Carlow.  An Taibhdhearc was replaced by the Theatre Royal in Waterford during 2021. The total emissions of CO2e for the initial seven venues amounted to 628 tonnes in 2018.  This figure reduced to 580 tonnes of CO2e in 2019.  More detailed findings are available in this summary report.

In 2021, with funding from the Arts Council, the GAII commenced the Greening Arts Centres Project with the same seven venues, building their capacity to better understand their impacts and begin to plan how to reduce those impacts – particularly their carbon footprint.  That project was completed in September 2022.