THE SPOTLIGHT PROGRAMME
The Spotlight Programme worked with NPOs in the 2018-22 cohort – 30 organisations across 80 sites – to achieve measurable reductions through developing good environmental management practice, and setting achievable, yet ambitious, Environmental Impact Reduction Objectives (EIROs).
Since 2012, Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs) have been required to annually monitor their environmental impacts, using Julie’s Bicycle’s CC Tools carbon calculators.
The data collated revealed that a small proportion of NPOs, typically those with large infrastructures, are responsible for a third of the entire portfolio’s total carbon emissions.
Spotlight energy reduction results
Since the programme began, the group has reduced its electricity usage by 19% and reduced its gas usage by 32%.
Overall the Spotlight programme has reduced its Scope 1 and Scope 2 carbon emissions by 40%, compared to the baseline year of 2018 – 2019.
As with previous years, the decarbonisation effect of the national grid has played a significant role. Increases in wind, solar and biomass energy contributing to the UK’s electricity production mean that the grid’s emission factor has reduced by 32% between our baseline year of 2018/19 and the current year, 2022/23.
spotlight trends
We looked back across the Spotlight group to focus on trends from across the programme’s five-year lifespan, including their reporting using Pilio’s online energy tool, which allows organisations to monitor and manage their energy consumption to save money, reduce environmental impacts, and report achievements across their building portfolio. We have taken this learning forward into the design of our newer programme, Transforming Energy.
Background and Overview of the Spotlight programme
The Spotlight programme has the following priorities:
- Improvements to environmental literacy, strategy, and expertise, to agree achievable, yet ambitious, Environmental Impact Reduction Objectives (EIROs) and create governance frameworks that support their attainment and benefit the longer-term resilience of cultural institutions.
- Supporting energy management strategies and operational systems to embed new technology and behaviours with a focus on driving down impacts and costs.
- Creating opportunities for organisations to share best practice, knowledge and experience is a key part of the programme, which will enable organisations individually – and the sector as a whole – to achieve further environmental reductions.
Spotlight focuses on energy management with building-based arts organisations and follows the principles of good energy management as set out with ISO50001.
Check out some case studies from our Spotlight organisations:
Spotlight target setting methodology
The Spotlight group – 30 organisations across 80 sites – worked closely with JB to achieve measurable reductions in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement – limiting global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.
The energy and carbon reduction targets proposed for each Spotlight organisation were calculated based on their 2018-19 energy baseline using the Science Based Targets (SBT) methodology.
The SBT approach used for Spotlight target-setting is the sector-based approach i.e.: the global carbon budget is divided by sector – in this case commercial buildings – and emission reductions are allocated to individual companies and organisations based on its sector’s budget. Targets set are relative – kilowatt (kWh) hours of energy used and kilogrammes (kg) of CO2e from energy use, both per square metre of floor area.
