Let’s not miss this moment to invest in creativity and culture and meet climate and nature targets for a thriving future for us all.
On Wednesday, the Government announced plans to invest £1.5bn into England’s cultural buildings over the next five years, supporting capital projects and increasing access to cultural venues for communities across the country. Following years of under-investment JB warmly welcomes this news.
The UK’s museums, galleries, libraries, music and theatre venues, spiritual spaces and cinemas sit at the heart of our communities, creating places to connect with one another and enrich our lives. New investment will help our cultural spaces to continue as vital hubs that strengthen local communities and economies and protect our shared heritage.
This spending is an unprecedented opportunity to take action on climate and nature by making sure that our cultural infrastructure is aligned to our climate and nature ambitions. If spent wisely, it should unlock benefits across England’s local authorities far beyond the bricks and mortar of cultural venues. It must be focused on the UK’s Net Zero and 2030 nature targets, national adaptation planning and building long-term resilience into our communities, in line with recent developments on climate including a record-breaking offshore wind auction and publication of the Warm Homes Plan. By walking the walk on climate and nature, there’s also an opportunity to inspire the millions of people who come into these cultural spaces.
Off the back of COP30 in Brazil, where international policy is at last acknowledging the critical role of culture in climate action, and with further evidence just this week of the societal risks posed by nature loss, this alignment is both necessary and obvious. This should not be seen as a £1.5 billion cost, but an investment in a more resilient future.
For too long, the UK’s creative and cultural sector has been seen as separate from efforts to address environmental challenges. The Government’s Creative Industries Sector plan, published alongside last year’s Industrial Strategy, recognised the sector’s potential to support wider environmental ambitions, following similar commitments in the Creative Industries Sector Vision around the ‘critical’ role of these industries in achieving climate goals.
Importantly, the sector is ready. Recent research published by the Creative Industries Council shows that the overwhelming majority of creative and cultural sectors are committed to climate action, both internally and with audiences and fans. But of the 79% taking part in industry initiatives on sustainability, 34% experienced challenges in capacity. JB’s Transforming Energy programme has also worked with over 85 cultural organisations nationally to develop decarbonisation plans in preparation for capital funding opportunities. Our Capital Investment Ready programme takes this to the next level with organisations that are advancing towards fully decarbonising their buildings by 2030. These examples, and many others such as the Theatre Green Book, Galleries Climate Coalition and BFI show that it’s not commitment in short supply, rather the funding needed to make projects happen. This new investment could help many of these organisations to turn plans into reality.
Whilst this week’s announcement is a vote of confidence in the UK’s brilliant creative and cultural sector which will unlock opportunities across the country, we also hope that it kickstarts the transformative power of culture to support the UK’s climate commitments beyond this Parliament. Realising the full potential of culture-based solutions will take long term investment and policies which allow cultural spaces not just to survive, but to thrive.
Find out more about JB’s work with cultural venues to reduce their environmental impact
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