Hybrid Futures aims to address environmental sustainability through both organisational practices and programming, working with Sustainability Advisor Danny Chivers.
Danny has been working with each partner organisation to review their current environmental practices, impacts, targets and action plans, and to investigate ways to minimise the negative – and boost the positive – environmental impacts of the Hybrid Futures exhibitions and events, and of the partners’ broader activities into the future. The partner organisations are gathering data to help assess the carbon footprint and other impacts of the Hybrid Future shows, to find opportunities to improve their ongoing practices, and to identify examples of positive measures and actions to share with the wider art world.
Hybrid Futures Climate Case Study: Leviathan: From the Forest to the Sea exhibition at Touchstones, Rochdale 3 June- 12 August 2023
Leviathan: From the Forest to the Sea opened at Touchstones Rochdale featuring the 8th film in Shezad Dawood’s Leviathan Cycle, plus a series of physical artworks – was the first of the Hybrid Futures branded exhibitions to open.
As part of the Hybrid Futures project, staff at Touchstones and the team at Shezad’s studio collected as much data as they could about the energy, transport and material use associated with the exhibition. This information was then analysed by Danny Chivers, the Environmental Advisor to the project, to see what could be learned about the climate impact of the show.
Some useful resources for anyone else undertaking this work:
In April 2023, the Gallery Climate Coalition launched a new guide to help non-profit arts organisations to create an environmental action plan. You can read it here.
Julie’s Bicycle’s Creative Climate Justice Hub is aimed at creative practitioners who want to gain a deeper understanding of the topic of climate justice and ways to respond to it.
Culture Declares Emergency have an inspiring list of case studies, of other cultural organisations who are taking creative climate action.
Danny Chivers is the Sustainability Advisor for Hybrid Futures. He has 15 years of experience as a freelance carbon analyst and climate action consultant. He has acted as the lead external carbon consultant for many organisations from a range of sectors, specialising in international humanitarian charities and art galleries.
Danny has acted as Sustainability Advisor to the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC) since its earliest stages. Formed in 2020 by a group of London art galleries, GCC now has over 800 members in multiple countries, all of whom have pledged to at least halve their carbon emissions by 2030. Danny has supported GCC in the development of a user-friendly carbon footprint calculator specifically for art galleries; carried out carbon audits for individual arts organisations and helped them to set ambitious reduction targets; worked with the artist Gary Hume and art shippers Cadogan Tate on a foundational study showing that sending art by sea rather than air can reduce its transport footprint by 90%; written guidance for art galleries on measuring and managing their carbon footprint, as part of GCC’s “Decarbonisation Action Plan” for arts organisations; and collated best practice and provided general or bespoke carbon footprinting advice to dozens of arts organisations.
He holds a BSc in Environmental Biology, an MSc in Nature, Science and Environmental Policy and an MProf in Leadership for Sustainable Development. He writes a regular climate column for New Internationalist Magazine and is the author of “The No-Nonsense Guide to Climate Change” and “No-Nonsense Renewable Energy”.
