Introducing National Youth Ballet’s climate action plan
It’s easy to think that as an arts organisation in the UK we don’t have the power to make a change. But in the words of Greta, “no one is too small to make a difference.” Over 95% of UK arts organisations have nine or fewer employees (source: Mckinsey 2023). Yes, we are small – but so is everyone else and collectively we can make an impact!
At National Youth Ballet we have been working for the last four years to put sustainability at the heart of what we do. We know that this is something that young people really care about. This means embedding environmental thinking in everything from governance, finance, advocacy, operations to creative output.
In practice, this means working in the short and long-term to find incremental gains, whether it’s making big decisions, like changing who we bank with, to selling second-hand ballet clothes at our events. We don’t think we’ve got all the answers yet! But we’ll keep consciously striving to make better choices.
How did we get started? We began with a healthy dose of passion, and through this discovered brilliant resources from organisations such as B Corp, Julie’s Bicycle, Arts Council England and Creative Climate Scotland. From this we were able to create a three-year climate action plan with six core pillars.
1. Governance
For sustainability to be a priority it has to be supported at all levels. Sustainability is woven through all our governance structures, including our Board, Steering Group and Youth Council. In 2024, we set up an ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) committee which meets on a quarterly basis and is responsible for holding the organisation to account. It has a nominated trustee as a Chair who represents the interests of climate and sustainability issues at board level.
2. Equality of Access and Social Justice
Our goal is to make ballet accessible to young people from all backgrounds and levels of experience. We have delivered work in more regions around the country, helping to offset the carbon footprint of our activity. Through fundraising, we now offer more bursaries (for both our courses and travel) for those who struggle to afford our activities and to increase opportunities for underrepresented groups in dance.
Our NYB All in! Programme explores how ballet can be created and taught in a more inclusive way. We are also working with ballet teachers across the UK on new CPD courses that provide guidance on inclusion in ballet.
3. Advocacy
We want to inspire discussion around the climate and equality across the UK ballet world, both in-person and online. We are bringing climate discussion into more of our comms (hence this article), including on social media. As an organisation we declared a climate emergency in 2023. This is an important step in acknowledging the harms presented by climate change and ensuring that as an organisation we include climate responsibility in all of our conversations.
4. Operations
There are many areas where we have been able to make small changes to support our climate action plan. For example, our website is now hosted using UK renewable energy and our preferred supplier list is informed by environmental credentials wherever possible. Wherever we can we also reuse, borrow and hire costumes, we have banned fast fashion and we endeavour to use sustainable fabrics and suppliers. Lastly, our travel bursaries are restricted to travel by public transport to support our commitment to reducing our carbon footprint.
5. Creative output
We understand that we can be powerful ambassadors, representing the voices of young people and advocating for an environmentally conscious future. For the last two years we have used the power of our creative and performance opportunities to tell these stories, inspired by the climate emergency, resulting in a new performance, Echoes of Tomorrow, which will be performed at theatres across the UK later this year.
6. Finance
This covers everything from always striving to pay our contractors a fair wage, to ethical purchasing and fundraising. In 2024 we switched our ticketing platform to Ticket Tailor, which has a B Impact Assessment score of 123 and donates 1p of every ticket sale to climate charity partners. We also switched to Project Merchandise, the UK’s only dedicated provider of sustainable merch, which supports a range of climate initiatives. Lastly, we ensure that any funders we work with meet the standards set out in our NYB Ethical Fundraising Policy.
There have been challenges along the way. For example, we would love to be able to measure and track our carbon footprint, but as an organisation with limited resources, we’re not in a position to do this. For now, we are focusing on tracking our travel footprint with the goal of creating a baseline.
What’s next for us? 2026 marks the update of our first climate action plan. It is a moment for us to take stock. We already have great plans to deliver on some big ticket items. We are going to embed sustainability in our Articles of Association, making sustainability a part of our core purpose and we are hoping to finally move our banking to a bank that better aligns with our ethical commitments. We are also developing the role of an environmental champion in our Youth Council.
We hope that by sharing our progress publicly we inspire others and start discussion in the dance world. According to Julie’s Bicycle, many organisations don’t share their climate actions out of fear of criticism or because they wait until they’re ‘perfect’. Our goal is to be transparent and honest about what we are doing now and where we aren’t quite there yet. What we can say is that from a small seed of enthusiasm, we have radically changed the way we work and we’re excited about the future.
If you are interested in talking to us about our journey or to share your experiences we would love to hear from you.
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Photo by Lachlan Monaghan
🔊 Audio version available
