Environment Statement

Staffordshire St. is committed to embedding sustainable practices across our programmes, operations, and partnerships, as part of our vision to be a respected and relevant arts space. We believe in the transformative power of creativity to engage with and address critical issues, such as climate justice. We recognise the climate crisis is one of the most urgent challenges of our time driving profound environmental degradation and deepening social inequalities. We encourage engagement and awareness both internally and externally with sustainability, to create a more resilient and happier organisation, for us and the communities we serve. In 2025 we are undertaking a pause year of consultation as we grow and develop our organisation. As part of this we are strategically building a multi year activity plan which develops our public programme and aims to better achieve our objectives. A key strand of this programming is art and the environment; Staffordshire St. aims to be a hub, for critical debate and ideas, for creative events and resource building, that address the topics of sustainability with artistic materiality and making.

We know that arts organisations contribute heavily to environmental harm, largely through frequent international travel, the transport of artworks, and intensive consumption of energy and resources. We aim to provide a platform for critical sustainable art practices to be explored and established to address the impact of the art world on the environment.

We are currently responding to the climate and biodiversity crisis by:

  • Our building is fitted with solar panels, lowering energy consumption
  • All our staff walk/cycle/take public transport to work
  • Our outdoor spaces have plants and flowers
  • We operate a circular use of materials, sharing with and sourcing from our Studio
  • Holders and local Facebook Groups
  • All of our printed materials use recycled paper which is FSC certified
  • We have digital platforms to share documents internally, reducing the material we print
  • We use an eco friendly cleaning company
  • We have adopted a local council planter to support

We recognise that further work must be done to reduce the negative environmental impact of

our activities and our building.

Actions (2025-2027)

  • Engage in consultation with an experienced cultural and sustainability advisor
  • Undertake training for all staff, including Carbon Literacy and Digital Footprint
  • Engage with communities working sustainability or affected by the climate crisis with our public programmes
  • Appoint a Sustainability Officer on the staff team
  • Work towards joining the Gallery Climate Coalition
  • Compare our environmental performance against the industry average based on data collected through Julies Bicycle Creative Green Tools and certification scheme
  • Schedule environment and sustainability meetings into our in-house programme development
  • Schedule a dedicated meeting on sustainability with partner artist/s and/or curator/s for each exhibition
  • Encourage external producers to fabricate locally where possible and consider the transparency of supply chains and transport when purchasing materials
  • Monitor the environmental impact of our website annually using https://www.websitecarbon.com/ and each six months take readings from across the website to understand the impact
  • Actively aim to reduce our waste and digital footprint, as well as monitoring and reporting
  • Add more green planting into our outdoor spaces to enhance the ecosystems
  • Ensure that any inhouse production is fabricated locally where possible, consider the transparency of supply chains and transport when purchasing materials
  • Build environmental impact into our Evaluation Frameworks for all projects and programming to reflect on good practices and build on where improvements could be made
  • Seek external guidance to research and develop an evolving list of materials that do not meet our sustainability standards which we can work towards phasing out
  • Embed our Environmental ethos in all partnership agreements
  • Consider the environmental impact when making any new purchase and review existing services and suppliers to ensure they are acting responsibly. i.e. reduce our Amazon spend