The climate emergency is one the greatest challenges of our time. The window for action is rapidly closing and we are already seeing the impacts through devastating droughts, storms, floods and forest fires across the world. Related crises include collapsing biodiversity, dangerous levels of air pollution and plastic contamination in our rivers and oceans. Without urgent action collectively these problems will rapidly escalate.
The art industry, like other industries, has an important role to play. Arts organisations – particularly in the Global North – have a disproportionately large impact on the environment, mainly due to a great deal of international travel, artwork freight and high use of energy and materials. We need to act immediately to reduce this impact, and as a sector we have an opportunity to use our public platform and cultural influence to set a positive example, encouraging and supporting others to take action.
At Thomas Dane Gallery, we pledge to continually examine our operations to become more adaptive, responsible and most importantly reduce our impact on the environment. As a commercial art gallery, we know that art freight, business flights and energy usage are our most carbon intensive areas and therefore our main environmental impact.
We have committed to addressing these impacts by:
• Joining the Gallery Climate Coalition with the aim to reduce our carbon by at least 50% by 2030
• Completing an annual carbon report (not including scope 3) for our operations to help us understand, actively review and reduce our emissions
• Setting the following targets to reach our reduction goals:
o Working towards a majority of non-air freight artwork shipments
o Reducing our business travel emissions
o Completing the switch to renewable energy on all our premises by 2030 and constantly reviewing our energy sources in line with new technology and solutions
o Working towards zero-waste operations with a focus on switching all gallery and supplier packing materials to be reusable or curbside recyclable
The actions we are taking to meet these targets include:
• Programming and planning ahead as much in advance as possible to always allow for alternative freight options to take place
• Committing to travel by train as much as possible within Europe and consolidating travel by air to reduce the number of flights per person per year
• Lobbying our building management company to change to a renewable energy supplier
• Researching and keeping up to date with alternative packaging solutions whilst also speaking to our suppliers and service providers encouraging them to switch to better packing solutions too
• Maintaining a Green Team that meet twice a month to track our targets, actions and carbon emissions
• Continuing to chair sustainability discussions every 6 months with the full gallery team
In addition to the direct actions we are taking, we also aim to work in partnership with our artists, collaborators and suppliers to support, share knowledge and spark discussion to instigate action throughout our network.
Following the Gallery Climate Coalitions guidance, we are also looking at the best way to take responsibility for our remaining emissions by donating to a Strategic Climate Fund. By donating funds in this way we know the money will be spent to actively accelerate our global emissions reduction and support frontline climate solutions around the world who are actually making a difference. To find out more about Strategic Climate Funds please visit:
https://galleryclimatecoalition.org/scfs/
We are setting these targets to take action, while still maintaining a self-reflective and critical approach. We accept that these are new processes we are putting in place, which require refinement and often will not be right on the first try. We are committed to learning through trial and error, and feel that the best approach is through a sense of transparency, open communication and collaboration.
For any questions or enquires about our environmental statement please contact hannah@thomasdanegallery.com
Green Team:
Our gallery green team are instrumental in the implementation of our targets and we would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their ongoing commitment.
Gallery Green Team Members:
Camilla Bove
Maud Cherbonnel
Emma Da Costa
Tamyra Denoon
Hannah Wright