On the 26th of November, members of the Sustainable Design Group, Hamish Muir, Hannah Harding and Blue Bradfield, presented at the artistic process symposium of the 2020 Tbilisi Biennale of Stage Design. The topic discussed was titled ‘A Green Design Parliament: Thinking, Talking, Learning, and Designing Sustainably with the Society of British Theatre Designers’. The presentation was about the establishment of the SBTD sustainable design group, how the group prospered during lockdown because members could easily meet online, the advantages and disadvantages of using an online platform as a medium to produce design work, and whether such a medium and circumstance questioned assumptions of what design work can be. The presentation resonated with an international audience, which restated the fact that climate change is an issue that affects us all.

We are creating our own bespoke Carbon Literacy Training to help us develop legitimacy, confidence and knowledge as designers, and provide a jumping off point for practical individual and group actions to address the climate crisis in our practice and the wider industry. We would like to welcome more of you to take part in designing the course content, and potentially training to deliver the course in your own region. If you’re interested and can spare a few days over the coming months, please email us at sustainability@theatredesign.org.uk with “carbon literacy training” in the subject line. Please let us know if you have a particular interest in:

Since we started in February of last year, we’ve been working alongside Ecostage, the designer-led initiative to place ecological thinking at the heart of creative practice. Ecostage recently had a successful crowdfunding campaign and, though it still needs a bit more, it has now raised enough to be able to go ahead with its new website. You can find out more at ecostage.online.Ecostage is running a survey which will also provide really useful data for us in the SBTD Sustainable Design group. It’s very quick to do – no more than 5 mins –  please fill it out: here’s the link.