Carbon Reporting

Fife Contemporary is not a perfect organisation when it comes to our climate impact or making changes to our carbon footprint. We think it is more important to understand what we can do and make positive change where possible, rather than to make claims for sustainability that we can’t substantiate. We are also a small organisation, compared to many arts and cultural institutions, therefore our carbon footprint is also comparatively small and changes we make to reduce it can only have a limited impact in themselves.

But despite our small size and capacity, measuring, monitoring and reducing the carbon we produce is still really important to us and remains a key concern. We have an Environmental Action Plan, which is updated annually and which keeps us focused on changes we can make and the impact we can have.

An emerging area of focus is how we can share our research more widely and use our voice to influence others and have an impact beyond our modest size. This includes working with our partners, suppliers, audiences and the artists we work with to help influence and encourage wider change. We do this by:

Reporting regularly our carbon use and receiving an annul report from Culture for Climate Scotland
Updating our policies and budget regularly to reflect climate concerns, including prioritising sustainable travel and budgeting time and funding accordingly.
Being part of important climate initiatives such as the Green Arts Initiative, The Green Craft Initiative and Culture Declares Emergency, amongst others.
Talking to our suppliers and partners regularly and requesting and researching sustainable options as part of procurement.
Providing support for artists to develop sustainable practice through our Artists’ Environmental Resource and Sharespace.
Proposing, seeking out and testing new ways to reduce our carbon footprint based on our specific circumstances and sharing these results here.

The Bumpy Path to Net Zero

Becoming a Net Zero organisation is challenging, it requires radical change to behaviours, systems, policies, and priorities.

Below are the two most recent graphs of our journey produced for us by Culture For Climate Scotland.

The pandemic forced many organisations into home working, minimising travel for meetings and work and switching to online programming and events. This helped reduce measurable carbon emissions from travel and exhibition install substantially. We did not want to remain an online-only organisation, so in our journey back to regular programming since 2021 we have taken steps to minimise climate impacts.

In 2022-23 our total core emissions were 1.13 Tonnes CO2e.

In 2023-24 our total core emissions were 1.43 Tonnes CO2e. Early in the year we moved back into our previously closed office which accounted for much of our increased footprint.

The breakdown of the causes of our measurable carbon footprint are highlighted in the graphs above. The below graph includes the climate footprint of our staff commutes, which we first recorded in 2023-24. We know these are high because our staff are based across Fife and beyond and because of the comparatively remote location of our St Andrews office.

Ways we have minimised our travel footprint so far have included continuing to work from home where practicable, prioritising public transport, amalgamating programme movements efficiently, and finding and researching more sustainable travel alternatives. Since starting to record the carbon from our staff commutes we have seen we also need to consider our office location and help staff manage home gas and electric emissions.

Key Climate Aims for the coming year are:

to scope and research alternative office space in a location more accessible to public transport for staff and visitors so we can reduce the footprint of our commute.
to seek support, and work in partnership, to source an electric vehicle which can be used across Fife for creative programming.

Recent Projects, Ideas and Reports

As well as monitoring and reporting our overall carbon we have been sure to focus on specific projects that help us understand our carbon footprint better, and to see where radical change can impact this positively and in a meaningful way. We have also looked for ways of improving our partnerships and sharing resources to maximise use of the circular economy.

The Can Van

Electric Van Test

Hag. Waste Reduction

In the interest of transparency we will keep sharing our climate journey and the challenge of reaching Net Zero on these pages, and in our blogs and social media. Keep in touch or follow @fifecontemp on social media for more.