house southeast theatre network’s Environmental Statement

house is a scheme run through Farnham Maltings, who have their own Environmental Policy which can be read here: green policy | Farnham Maltings

Overview

house southeast theatre network is committed to minimising and improving the environmental impact of its activities, both in the office and on tour. We recognise, and celebrate, our ability to inspire and support both our network members and the touring companies we work with in sharing this ambition and its workload. Therefore, it is our responsibility to inform and increase awareness of both the Climate Emergency and the role we all play in working sustainably within the theatre sector.

Our ambition:

We understand that touring work around the UK, and presenting work within venues, has a carbon output and therefore a negative impact on the planet. We are passionate about reducing our carbon output to Net Zero and therefore have made the following commitments to work towards this ambition.

Our commitments:

• Reduce house’s overall consumption of natural resources, including the companies we work with to tour productions across the South East of England
• Research & development into a more environmentally sustainable sector
• Advocate best practise within venues and touring
• Sustainable practice: sustainability is a key part of our day-to-day working practises and decision making
• Review our commitments and actions every year to ensure progress is being made.

Our actions:

REDUCE

• Capture and analyse the carbon footprint of our touring seasons across the house network.
• Work with touring companies to reduce their carbon emissions on tour (working from our 2024 touring emissions baseline).
• Work in collaboration with network members and touring companies to reduce the sector’s dependence on printed materials.
• All our event catering is vegetarian or vegan.
• Where possible, we encourage sustainable public transport, where possible, with air travel always as a final option.
• Our website servers run off renewable energy and we assess the carbon footprint of our website.

ADVOCATE

• Educate and motivate staff, network members and touring companies in environmental sustainability best practice within the sector, through training, seminars and providing peer-to-peer learning opportunities.
• Identify, develop and advocate models of best practice in touring sustainably.
• Identify, develop and advocate best practice in environmental sustainability within venues/buildings.
• Support our venue network members in communicating their environmental efforts to their audiences and including audiences within their sustainability journey.

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

• Running sustainability pilots and research across the theatre sector.
• Where possible, supporting/collaborating with partners on their own research projects.
• Sharing and platforming relevant and supportive research with our network members and touring companies.
  
  

SUSTAINABILITY IN PRACTISE

• Our environmental impact is a factor in all decision-making processes, and where carbon output is a result of an activity, we will work to reduce that impact.