Young at Art is committed to working more sustainably and being a changemaker for sustainability with the next generation. Belfast Children’s Festival has been made a Silver-certified Green Tourism event (December 2023) participating in the scheme with support from Belfast City Council and Visit Belfast.
As an international arts festival, we want to strike a balance when presenting the best international, national and local arts experiences to our audiences while minimising our impact on the environment and ensuring ongoing access to the arts.
Here are nine ways Belfast Children’s Festival (and Young at Art) is painting the town green!
1. A reduced print run of BCF brochures
In this digital age, there’s less need for printed copies of the festival brochure. We’ve instead opted to publish a digital brochure on our website, add QR codes to our outdoor advertising and produce a smaller number of printed brochures.
2. Encouraging Public Transport
We are encouraging audiences to consider travelling to Belfast Children’s Festival 2024 using public transport. Reducing carbon emissions from car journeys helps to improve sustainability and air quality.
3. Sustainable workshop materials
We’re committed to being more sustainable in our use of workshop materials for both the festival and in our year-round workshops. We do this by including sustainability as a focus in the planning stages pf project delivery and encouraging artists to use found and recycled objects as part of their workshops.
When we moved offices before Christmas, we held an open day for artists and friends of Young at Art to take whatever materials we no longer needed, for their own use.
4. Education and Engagement programme
We are piloting a green approach to our Education and Engagement programme, while continuing the important aims of individual projects. Artists are using public transport to travel to workshops and carpooling where public transport isn’t an option. In asking people who work with us to be more mindful of their own footprint, we hope this will have a ripple effect, as many of artists we work with are involved with multiple other projects in the sector.
5. Vegan/vegetarian food
We now choose to offer vegan or vegetarian food as a first option when catering for Young at Art board meetings or Belfast Children’s Festival industry talks and networking events.
6. Local suppliers
We’re opening the conversation with our key suppliers about what they’re doing to become more sustainable. We’ve started the process of upgrading our office equipment, prioritising environmentally friendly options.
7. Ordering eco-friendly office supplies
In a conscious effort to reduce our carbon footprint, we are implementing sustainable practices when sourcing and ordering eco-friendly office supplies.
8. Renewable energy mix
As we continue our commitment to sustainability, we are actively exploring the integration of a renewable energy mix into the core operations of our organisation.
9. Establishing a sustainability working group
We have a sustainability working group in Young at Art. This group reports progress to our recently appointed green champion, who will in turn report to our board. This holds us accountable to reaching our sustainability goals.
We are also documenting our green achievements in Young at Art’s Annual Reports and we encourage and welcome feedback from our audiences on how else we could be more sustainable. Get in touch with your feedback here.
