CLIMATE JUSTICE STATEMENT & POLICY

OPEN SKY’S CLIMATE JUSTICE STATEMENT

We believe that the ongoing climate and nature crisis is the defining issue of our time. The destruction of ecosystems and the communities that they contain in the name of corporate and governmental profit is deeply immoral. As citizens of a country that has, and continues to, over-consume natural resources and energy on a massive scale, we feel a strong responsibility to take real and effective action. We will continue to educate ourselves on this issue, reduce our own environmental footprint and make work that inspires wider, positive action for the benefit of everyone and everything that lives under the wide, open skies of this planet.

OPEN SKY’S CLIMATE JUSTICE POLICY

Open Sky is a small, artist-led, production company that makes theatre, film and digital theatre. As a company with only two full-time employees our policy needs to simple, effective and ambitious.

With this in mind we are concentrating our efforts in three key areas: inward education, footprint reduction, inspiring change:

1.     INWARD EDUCATION

Before we take action in the outside world it is key that our company leadership and the advisory board that assess the impact of our activities understand have confidence in their own contemporary knowledge about the issue. We need to understand which are the most pressing issues of the day, who they affect and how we can positively address them. This information will then be shared with all our collaborators and partners on a regular and rolling basis. We do not view this educational process as limited but as regular and continuous, planned and organised on an annual basis.

2.     FOOTPRINT REDUCTION

Using the information gathered from our inward education we will review our own environmental impact in two key areas: administration and production. This is key to our organisations success in this area as the two types of activity impact the environment differently. When the company is in administrative mode is normally involves a relatively small number of people (5-10) carrying out regular types of activity. When the company is in production mode activities tend to be shorter, more diverse in nature and involve larger numbers of people (50-100.) We will therefore create an annual action plan for reducing our environmental impact during administrative periods managed by the company leadership and project by project plan for production mode that will be managed by the producer of that specific production. Data from both modes of activity will be collected, collated and reported publicly.

3.     INSPIRE CHANGE

We tell stories that are relevant. We’re a small company but we reach a lot of people. Climate crisis is one story that is directly relevant to every human being on the planet. We could not fulfill our mission as a company without telling stories about what is happening to our shared ecosystem. We will ensure that our production schedule of projects in development, production and distribution will always, at any given time, contain at least one project that addresses an aspect of climate crisis. These stories will be informed by what we learn during our inward education and active reduction of our own footprint. These stories will also be produced and distributed in way which takes into account their specific footprint and mitigates the project’s environmental impact. We will actively collect data about the impact these stories have on the audiences that receive them to assess their benefit to the cause.