UP Projects Environmental Policy

Who we are

UP Projects curates and commissions public art. The organisation was founded in 2002 by Emma Underhill, with a mission to support artists to make new work that has social relevance, engages communities, encourages learning and enriches the public sphere. 

We work collaboratively with artists, communities and partners to create extraordinary projects. Our outlook is international, activating spaces across the globe and in the digital domain. Our work explores the multitude of ways in which people can encounter and connect with contemporary art in unexpected places.    

UP Projects reaches millions of people through ambitious public commissions by a diverse selection of artists, informal learning activities, artist-led community engagement and events.  

We believe art and artists play a vital role in stimulating debate, shaping our environment, encouraging participation, and effecting social change. UP Projects is therefore committed to nurturing artists’ and curators’ socially engaged practice through our learning and development programmes as well as through our projects.   

We work with a broad range of public and private sector partners including major public bodies such as the Greater London Authority, local authorities and government ministerial departments, cultural institutions including Barbican Centre, Wellcome Collection, Touchstones Rochdale and Flat Time House, corporations such as Crossrail and London Legacy Development Corporation, cultural festivals including Art Night London and Creative Folkestone Triennial, and education faculties such as Queen Mary University and Kings College London. We support our partners to be bold and innovative, bringing a breadth of experience and skills covering strategy writing, public art commissioning, digital commissioning, artist selection processes, community engagement, evaluation, and public event programming. 

Our Values

Our work is underpinned by five core values:     

Artistic Excellence – representing the height of ambition, talent, and skill

Relevance -responsive to contemporary life and, engaging for our diverse communities  
Learning to Learn - a collaborative and non-hierarchical approach to learning for all 
Openness – making our work as accessible as possible: conceptually, intellectually, physically, geographically, and economically, considering disability and barriers to access. 
Innovation – challenging convention, supporting risk-taking, and testing new ideas in the physical and digital realms

UP Projects is a registered charity, based in London, UK. 

Our Mission

UP Projects commissions contemporary art for public places. We support artists to make work that has social relevance, encourages learning, transforms places and activates the public realm. We believe that public art has the greatest potential when the process is considered as important as the final project outcome. Our work is rooted in meaningful engagement to ensure credibility and support from the outset.

Our motivation for taking action in relation to the Environmental Policy

As a socially engaged charity, we are dedicated to maintain and improve upon our approach to environmental sustainability – this relates to all areas of the charity’s ethos, policy, and practice. We believe that the climate crisis is an urgent issue and we recognise the importance of responding to the global changes of climate change and securing environmental sustainability.

As an organisation whose activity builds conversation across sectors, between communities, in London, the UK and internationally, UP Projects is well placed to influence the environmental agenda within the cultural community and wider society.

The Climate Emergency is one of our key programme priorities that govern our curatorial thinking for the next five-year period (and beyond) and we believe that this in turn we as an organization also have a responsibility to demonstrate environmentally conscious best practice in our operations and in the way we develop and deliver artist-led projects.

Glossary

Though we understand that the term sustainability comes with broader implications including human, social and economic sustainability (see below for further details) for the purposes of this policy we will focus on environmental sustainability and how our actions as a public art commissioning organisation can help maintain if not improve the current impact society is having on the environment.

We understand Environmental Sustainability to mean: the protection of resources and natural capital. (1)

As an organisation, we aim to develop prorgammes that critically address our use of materials and ensure that the needs of the programme/ activity or artist are met without compromising the needs of future generations through unsustainable practices.

The other three pillars of sustainable practice include:

Human Sustainability- This pillar aims to improve and maintain the human capital within society, it focuses on health, education, access, nutrition and knowledge. As an organization, we champion activities and programmes that respect and nurture human capital. Through our core value learning we believe in the development of human skills and human capacity to support the functions of sustainability and promote the health and wellbeing of the communities we work with.

Social Sustainability- This pillar aims to preserve and nurture social capital by creating and offering services, activities and programmes that constitute the framework of our society. We champion an ambitious larger view of the world in relation to the communities we work with, foregrounding their cultures and the impact of globalization on them and their lives. Alongside this we acknowledge that our actions, have an impact on others and on the world. Championing social sustainability means contributing to improving social quality with concepts such as cohesion, democratic participation, and coproduction emphasizing the importance of relationships amongst people.

Economic Sustainability- Economic sustainability aims to improve the standard of living. We champion economic sustainability across our activities by ensuring our programmes are cost efficient, in order for a broad public audience to have access to cultural programmes that address the other three pillars of sustainability.

Although this policy refers predominantly to Environmental Sustainability, we must acknowledge that an environmentally sustainable business seeks to integrate all four aspects of sustainability. The other aspects are however touched upon in other company policies and through our values to ensure that where environmental sustainability is out of our control (most commonly due to partner collaborations and second-party venues) we forefront an alternative pillar where possible to ensure our continuous contribution to sustainable practice.

Statement of Policy

UP Projects is committed to the active pursuit of an Environmental Policy within its physical and digital programmes of work, administrative and operational processes and collaborative partnerships.

This Environmental Policy supports our aim to be an environmentally conscious organisation that considers best practice in relation to:  

The organisation’s operational and administrative processes 
The development and execution of new commissions (both physical and digital)

(i)The development of partnerships 

Our programme includes projects that seek to raise awareness of and empathy towards environmental issues and we encourage artists to consider the environmental impact of the projects from proposal through to delivery. 

We recognise that commissioning artworks for the public realm is complex, often involving multiple stakeholder agendas. We believe that there is an important role for us to ask questions and suggest alternative approaches that will support environmental sustainability.   

This policy accords with our Environmental Action Plan which includes a Sustainability Check List by which all new projects will be assessed.  

(ii) Responsibility and Commitment

UP Projects recognises that its operations and activities have an impact on the environment. We are committed to reducing our environmental impact by taking imminent action across our sphere of influence. We commit to improving the environmental performance of our operations and administrative processes, physical and digital commissions and through the development of our partnerships. We commit to working with communities, artists and partners to foster an environmentally sustainable mindset within the cultural sector and society as a whole.

Having reached a critical moment in the history of our society and planet we are committed to working sustainably, protecting our environment, and working towards a regenerative culture. (2)

Regenerative cultures require change to manifest; societies must live differently and adapt new behaviours that hold the promise of serving us better. We therefore aim to work towards regenerative ways of working by improving our environmental sustainability holistically across the organisation. To do so we aim to address human, social, economic and environmental sustainability within our work and commit to working with artists that consider all but champion at least one of the aforementioned pillars.

Our responsibility to all individuals and communities that we work with includes:

Promoting a sustainable mindset for all work conducted in relation to our organisation, its operations and programmes.
Working towards and actively contributing to the development of an environmentally conscious society which includes recognising and acknowledging where decisions are in our power and where partners and venues need to be called upon in order to develop more sustainable ways of working.
A willingness to work with artists and creative practitioners in order to find ambitious, innovative and sustainable materials to support them in transferring to more environmentally friendly ways of working.

(iii) Implementation in our programme of work

UP Projects is committed to the effective implementation of environmental sustainability into our programme of work which will help all those who work with or for us to develop their practices and ways of working in more environmentally conscious ways.

Our implementation methodology is developed in relation to providing the most relevant, up to date and appropriate measures to ensure best practices of environmental sustainability are championed. This approach demonstrates our ethos to providing support and delivering commissions, events, workshops, learning activities, engagement and online activities that consider environmental aspects from the outset. Furthermore, we also expect all our employees, artists, volunteers, partners, and any external clients to consider environmental sustainability in their work.

In addition to this the climate emergency is one of our main programme priorities over the coming years and as an organisation we will endeavour to address this priority both thematically, materially and practically.

We will develop better processes to become more environmentally sustainable and aim to consistently strive to deliver environmentally conscious work across the following aspects of our organisation:

Physical programming: Commissions, Projects, Workshops and Events

Digital programming: Commissions, Workshops, Events and Learning resources
Operational and Administrative Processes: Governing processes, Venue selection, Partner Selection, Ethical Income (outlined in separate policy), Day-to-day Operations
Partnership Development: The development of new long and short term partnerships

More detailed information can be found in our accompanying Action Plan which outlines our approach, commitments and includes our response to monitoring our progress within these specific areas.

The Action Plan also supports the implementation of a strong element of learning in relation to environmental sustainability across our programming, and a commitment to keeping abreast of new methodologies and thinking. This will enable us to improve our knowledge and skills, build on our progress and challenge areas that need to be addressed in future.

(iv) Physical programming

The commissioning of artworks for the public realm whether ephemeral (such as events), temporary or permanent requires the use of materials. Our Action Plan checklist ensures that we encourage artists to consider the environmental impact of their choice of materials and encourages the use of recycled or sustainably conscious materials and avoid environmentally damaging materials. In addition to this we encourage all artists, staff and partners to consider the legacy of the materials and work they are producing, encouraging them to reuse, recycle or donate materials at the end of each commissioning period where possible.

The showcasing and presentation of artworks requires staff, artists, partners, communities and audiences to travel to and from the commission’s location. UP Projects endeavors to encourage all parties to travel in environmentally conscious ways and has begun to track the carbon footprint of their audiences traveling to and from location to be able to assess our environmental impact.

Artwork transportation is an essential part of what we do. We refer to our checklist to ensure environmental impact is considered and carbon emissions are reduced where possible.  

(v) Digital programming

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated our use of the digital, both through our operations and digital programming and commissioning. With digital transformation being a key programme priority over the coming years, we endeavour to adopt environmentally sustainable ways of operating in the digital domain.

We recognise that digital technologies come with a range of environmental consequences including anything from energy consumption to the mining of materials and e-waste. Although we acknowledge that the carbon impact of the digital can be relatively modest in comparison to other activities within the organisation we recognise our increased use of the digital domain and want to consider the host of environmental challenges that comes with ambitious, innovative online programming such as new energy demands from emerging technologies that artists may want to experiment with.

We endeavour to consider our digital footprint by:

Considering our online procurement: This includes continuing to hold all our data on cloud-based platforms ensuring 72-93% carbon savings and switching to and encouraging our artists to use web hosting services that are renewably powered.
Considering the purchasing of new devices: When purchasing new devices we encourage our team and artists to follow the circular economy approach and opt for refurbished or rented devices where possible.
Developing a greater understanding of our digital impact online: We endeavour to invest more time in finding ways to understand our digital impacts by consulting and speaking to suppliers and service providers and considering our operational emissions whilst operating in the digital domain.
Becoming an advocate for change: We intend to forefront environmental considerations at the start of any commissioning process and hope to inspire artists to use digital art to engage with environmental issues (aligned with our programme priority of climate emergency) and share actions taken to reduce the environmental impact of our projects.
Consider our digital hosting: We endeavour to encourage artists to use green hosting pages for their digital commissions and will provide them with recommendation of green sites where possible. (3)

(vi) Operational and Administrative Processes

We aim to champion and extend our environmental ambitions to the running of our organisation and all administrative processes that goes into our work.

Office Usage and Operations

As of September 2020, our team moved away from a permanent office space and moved to a co-working space reducing the amount of energy usage and travel time for our team.

We are mindful of the materials we use within our office environment. We are mindful of our use of paper and encourage the team to use recycled paper where possible, print in black and white and to use mis-prints to make notes. Working from home part-time has had a huge reduction on material use such as paper in our office environment.

When working in the office we recycle all paper, plastic and cans and separate our waste as initiated by the Coalface management.

Travel and Transport

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased our home working and reduced our travel immensely over the past year. Having moved away from a permanent office space and moved to a co-working space, team members are now only required to travel in up to three days a week.

Due to these new ways of working we have decreased travel immensely across the organisation. Where travel is necessary, we encourage employees to travel to the office using public transport, walking or cycling. UP Projects offers a bike to work scheme to support the latter. Where working nationally is required we actively try and reduce the travel required and use public transport where possible. As an organisation, we rarely travel to events internationally keeping flights and high impact methods of transportation to a minimum. When producing public programme events and workshops we encourage our audiences to use cleaner methods of transportation by providing transport details and recommendations where possible.

Marketing Materials

The majority of our marketing is carried out online rather than via printed materials such as posters, flyers. Where we do require the use of printed materials we recycle any excess materials. We endeavour to continue to use QR codes to share information with people during events to ensure the reduction of print materials where possible. In addition to this we encourage the team to consider print runs carefully to avoid over-printing of marketing materials and use recycled and sustainable materials where possible.

Communications and Cultural Engagement

Good environmental practice is shared amongst the team via our Environmental Lead (Moira Lascelles), and the use of our environmental checklist is encouraged. The appointment of a Trustee/or Critical Friend as a champion for environmental sustainability will serve to further this attitude and educate the UP Projects team in how to improve our carbon footprint. 

(vii) Partnership Development

UP Projects endeavors to select and prioritize partners with an environmentally conscious practice and outlook. We recognize that although we cannot control our partners operations we have a responsibility to become an advocate for changing by advocating and sharing best practice across the industry where possible. We therefore aim to integrate conversations on environmentally conscious working into the beginning of any partnership agreement in order to understand their priorities and agree a standard for working together.

(viii) Implementation in recruitment, employment and management

UP Projects is committed to the effective implementation of environmental sustainability through the selection, supervision and training of employees, artists, freelance practitioners, volunteers and board members. In order to achieve a workforce that champions an environmentally conscious mindset we endeavour to priorities the recruitment and appointment of employees and partners that prioritise environmental sustainability. We expect all our employees, artists, freelance practitioners, volunteers and board members to abide by this policy and help champion and environmentally conscious working practices.

Employment / Management

New employees, job applicants and relevant others (such as freelance practitioners, agency workers, partners, clients and artists) will be directed towards the policy and relevant action plan and checklists. We will incorporate specific and appropriate duties in respect of implementing the Environmental Sustainability Policy into job descriptions and work objectives of all staff.

Environmental sustainability will be built into discussions with Project Leads, Project Directors, Artists, Partners, Clients and relevant others at the Research and Development Stage of every commission we undertake. In some instances, this may include adding a sustainability clause into contracts and agreements.

Staff will be trained where necessary in order to be able to build in environmental sustainability into their practices. Managers and employee’s will include discussions around environmental sustainability into their meetings around each project with the ambition to improve on current practices, encouraging artist and relevant others to creatively consider these issues in their work.

Monitoring and Learning

UP Projects is committed to the monitoring and review of the effectiveness and relevance of our Environmental Sustainability Policy. We acknowledge that we are not leaders in the field of environmental sustainability but are committed to evolve and learn how to improve in these areas. This process will include keeping our staff up to date with the latest information and practices regarding improvements in technology, training, resources and external policies. Linking to UP’s core value of Learning, the importance of knowledge and skills sharing is pertinent here to ensure that all staff members, partners, clients and others are aware of our position and our commitment to improving our knowledge and skills.

In addition to these measures, UP Projects is committed to the evaluation and assessment of its programmes and we endeavour to track and monitor our carbon footprint where possible. We also aim to consider our environmental impact in our evaluations in order to document what we did well and proactively come up with areas of improvement for each project we undertake.

Where necessary, action will be taken by management to improve on any areas that do not meet the requirements and interventions may occur to address these issues.

The policy will be reviewed annually by UP Projects’ Environmental Lead, Moira Lascelles and a commitment to monitoring actions against the Action Plan will take place every quarter.

Complaints

UP Projects takes complaints or concerns regarding environmental sustainability very seriously. Any complaints or concerns should be reported to a manager or the operations manager. Non-sensitive complaints or concerns are encouraged to be shared with the team in Team and/or Programming Meetings at appropriate moments.

This policy is fully supported by The UP Projects Board of Directors and has been agreed with Emma Underhill, Director, UP Projects.

Sources / Footnotes

(1) Costanza, Robert, and Herman E. Daly. “Natural Capital and Sustainable Development.” Conservation Biology, vol. 6, no. 1, [Wiley, Society for Conservation Biology], 1992, pp. 37–46, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23...

(2) Daniel Wahl argues to replace the ideology of sustainability with regenerative cultures (Wahl, 2017) and implies that a “broadening (of) the sustainability mandate to incorporate social, cultural definitions… and abandon harm reduction strategies” under the umbrella term regenerative cultures is necessary (Maggs and Johnson, 2020, p27).

(3)This section was inspired by Julie’s Bicycle’s “Environmental Sustainability in the Digital Age of Culture”