Environmental Policy

Thinking about our impact on the world.

The consequences of damaging our planet will fall the heaviest to future generations. Here’s how we’re trying to minimise our environmental impact.

Illustration of a lion on a bike with a tree and dragonfly

Eco-anxiety is on the rise with children’s mental health being seriously impacted over concerns about living in an uncertain world. As an organisation dedicated to enriching the lives of CYP,  the minimum commitment we should make is to mitigate the negative environmental impact our work has, wherever possible. Our commitment to create work in the most environmentally responsible way within our capabilities, should be entrenched in everything we do.

Informed by Carbon Literacy training and networking with the South Yorkshire based Culture and Climate group,we made an internal assessment about our company-wide, current working practice.  

Below are the main areas we have identified as having the biggest negative impact, and how we are trying to make positive changes. These adaptations have been made with the knowledge that we are a small team with a stretched capacity and a limited budget.

Travel

Chol’s most obvious carbon output is linked to travel. Although working from home and meeting on zoom reduces the need to commute, the varied and ever changing locations of the delivery we undertake, crossed with the widespread home locations of core staff and freelancers, means we rely heavily on single person occupancy car journeys. 

Illustration of a globe

Target

A 10% year-on-year reduction in overall combustion-engine travel

What we are doing

  • Wherever possible, match freelancers to projects based on geographical proximity to project delivery, as well as skill set
  • Car share
  • Hold meetings and projects close to good public transport link
  • Begin meetings at times that allow additional travel time for use of public transport
  • Encourage small changes where big changes aren’t possible (Park and Ride for example)

Materials, set, costume and other paraphernalia

The nature of our structure and the capacity to which we all work has at times resulted in us having to be reactive. We’ve established a culture of making fast decisions, with little lead time for planning. This dramatically affects our ability to make sustainable choices – we’ve previously heavily relied on single-use items and next day delivery services to get hold of the things we need on time.

Illustration of a fairy

Target

For all of our productions and project to meet the BASIC Theatre Green Book standards as a minimum, using our adapted framework.

What we are doing

  • Sort what we already have, create a usable inventory
  • Design workshops and sets around existing stock
  • Buy secondhand and local wherever possible
  • Identify stock we use regularly (paper, pencil crayons etc) and buy from reputable suppliers in  bulk (reducing delivery miles)
  • Create a database of suppliers / brands / service providers who are ethical and sustainable and ideally, local
  • Only order vegetarian / vegan catering at Chol events
  • Build time into projects to accomplish this -making a shift towards paying people to think creatively, as opposed to spending more on new things

Online Footprint

The Digital Culture Network website states that “3.7% of global greenhouse gas emissions are created by our smartphones, gadgets, the internet, and its supporting network and systems. This is broadly equivalent to the emissions created by the aviation industry. Internet emissions are predicted to double by 2025 as more people come online and digital services increase.”

Illustration of a laptop

Website

The size of a website directly impacts the environmental impact it has – both in terms of storage and navigations. Running a website through a carbon calculator generates a carbon rating – wearechol.co.uk in 2023 was an “F”.

Target

For the Chol website to achieve a Carbon Rating of B or higher.

What we have done

  • Reducing image size
  • Only host necessary videos
  • Audit our Content Management System and delete any images or files that aren’t being used.
  • Review and streamline our user journey – making it as quick as possible for site visitors to find what they need
  • Cut copy
  • Use a UK hosting provider that is run by renewable energy
  • Compress Code and scripts – HTML, CSS and JavaScript 
  • Be selective with tracking scripts – think about the data we actually need to collect and keep it to a minimum.

We’re happy to share what we’ve learned so far, and we’d love to hear from people who might be able to help us do this better. That extends to organisations who want to share best practice, borrowing banks and ethical suppliers (particularly those who deal in reused materials).

Email ruth@wearechol.co.uk to start a conversation.