Research

Arts Council England has published its updated Environmental Responsibility Action Plan 2022-24, which details its goal of establishing a clearly defined pathway to net zero emissions by 2024, in line with the UK’s long-term Net Zero Strategy.

It also aims to reduce office energy use and business travel emissions by 25% by 2024, when compared to 2019/20.

The plan was developed in association with environmental partner Julie’s Bicycle, which helped complete a carbon footprint and environmental snapshot for 2019/20.

Based on what this revealed about ACE's environmental impacts, practice and performance, the updated environmental strategy will primarily focus on its operations and nine offices across England, taking into account limitations imposed by leasing office space and the impact of hybrid-working patterns.

The carbon footprint associated with touring and loaning works from the Arts Council Collection is also scrutinised in the new strategy, which includes a plan to rehouse the collection in a single repurposed building in Coventry, designed and operated to high environmental standards.

Other approaches to tackling emissions include instituting a minimum Energy Performance Certificate rating across all offices, updating the Cycle to Work scheme to include e-bikes, encouraging staff to use personal phones instead of company phones and transferring company pensions to ethical and environmentally friendly funds.

More than 85% of British people believe music is an important part of maintaining positive mental health, a survey has found.

The survey, conducted by the app FREE NOW also found that two thirds of those polled see local grassroots music venues as a vital part of the cultural make-up of their hometowns.

Half the people surveyed said that music was a reason for their closest friendships and almost 84% said they had at some point been moved to tears by music.

Music was also seen as a key component of many people’s romantic relationships. Almost a third of respondents said that they had met their partners though a connection with music and 38% knew what song they wanted to play for the first dance at their weddings before even meeting their partners.

“The importance of music was never in doubt but it’s great to see confirmation of just how vital it is to people’s daily lives”, said Mariusz Zabrocki, General Manager of FREE NOW.

“We know more than most that live music has had an incredibly rough few years with the pandemic and incoming cost of living crisis.”

The app is set to partner with the Music Venue Trust for 120 gigs aimed at supporting struggling music venues across the UK in the next year.

“The grassroots music sector is facing incredibly tough times with the energy crisis and the cost of living challenges compounding the impacts of the pandemic,” said the trust’s CEO Mark Davyd.

“This survey demonstrates again how important these venues are and how much it matters to people, and it’s great to see companies like FREE NOW recognising that value with direct action campaigns bringing more music opportunities to more people.”

Two theatres in Bradford have received more than £180,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to help them explore their history.

St George’s Hall, which opened in 1853, has hosted big names including Charles Dickens, Harry Houdini and David Bowie.

The Alhambra Theatre, built in 1913 and home to Bradford’s annual pantomime, has hosted acts such as Laurel and Hardy and Morecambe & Wise.

Yorkshire Live reports that the money will fund a a three-year project, starting this month, to develop and deliver “an extensive heritage activity programme”. The programme will look at, among other things, the lengthy history of pantomime at the Alhambra.

The cash comes from the Lottery’s Heritage Centre Stage activity programme. The Lottery says the funding will “unlock the heritage associated with Bradford’s historic city centre venues and engage with a range of people in the district”.

Sarah Ferriby, Bradford Council’s Executive Member for Healthy People and Places said: “Culminating in 2025 when Bradford will be UK City of Culture, we are thrilled to receive this award from The National Lottery Heritage Fund for our project; Heritage Centre Stage which will support a range of people from across the Bradford district to engage with the heritage in our fantastic, historic venues, in a way which has real meaning to their lives.”

The number of UK musicians booked to play festivals in Europe has fallen, according to analysis by Best for Britain.

The campaign group calculated the average number of British bands playing three major European festivals - Benicassim in Spain, Sziget in Hungary, and Lollapalooza in Germany – between 2017 and 2019, and compared it to the number booked to play the same festivals in 2022.

The analysis found a decrease of 45%. While noting the small sample size, Best for Britain said the statistics remain “sobering” and enough to raise “concerns on the impact that Brexit might be having on the next generation of British musicians”.

The analysis follows calls from across the music industry for the UK government to do more to support UK musicians touring the EU post-Brexit.

The Natural History Museum (NHM) is “set on a course that can only lead to irrelevance and failure”, a former member of staff at its Department of Life Sciences has warned. 

In an article entitled The tragedy of the Natural History Museum, Fred Naggs, an honorary Scientific Associate at the museum, criticised its “utterly inappropriate leadership and funding model".

He said that the NHM is the only public sector research establishment to be funded through the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, adding that “role of DCMS has been an unmitigated disaster”. 

Founded in 1881, the museum’s collection includes around 80 million items spanning botany, entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology and zoology and has long been recognised as a world-leading institution. 

Naggs said the museum’s declaration of a planetary emergency has been undermined by the “inappropriate” leadership, he wrote, diverting its research in directions that overlap with other academic agencies and “undermining the reason and justification for the museum’s existence”. 

“Rather than responding to a planetary emergency, the museum is tragically descending into irrelevance,” he wrote, adding that during a period of mass extinctions it is prioritising “aspirational virtue signalling” over science.

“Its current strategy, vision and priorities are fundamentally flawed”, he warned in his conclusion, adding that “the upbeat assertion that we can deal with the environmental and biodiversity crisis and dismissive rejection of so-called doom-mongering, is not just irresponsible and dishonest, but deluded and dangerous.”

Naggs outlined some steps he believes the NHM should take to regain its relevance.

Establishing an external review body made up of international scientific authorities would be a “first step” towards changing direction, he wrote. “This would need to be followed up by the restoration of regular external reviews.”

He called on the museum to return to a collections-based focus and establish a new model for building collections based on shared objectives.

“There is an urgent need to build new collections both for future research and to contribute to safeguarding and restoring a biodiverse world,” he wrote.

“Existing collections do not begin to meet the need for a collection’s legacy for a future in which much of Earth’s biodiversity will have been lost.”

A Natural History Museum spokesperson said: "Our scientifically-critical collections and world-leading research expertise both play a pivotal role in finding solutions to the planetary emergency. 

"We are committed, through initiatives such as our planned digitisation and science facility, to ensuring the collections and the vast data contained in them are safe, accessible and digitally available for researchers all over the world, enabling cutting-edge analysis and major scientific collaboration to help tackle issues such as biodiversity loss, climate change and food insecurity."

The Music Producers Guild (MPG) is asking music industry professionals to complete a survey on misogyny in music.

The survey results will form part of MPG’s submission of evidence to the Women and Equalities Select Committee, a group of cross-party MPs who are running an enquiry on misogyny in the industry.

The groups say it needs as many people as possible to fill the survey in. Responses are anonymous, although participants are asked to clarify whether or not they identify as a woman.

The survey is open until Friday (15 July).