Environmental Policy
Environmental Policy 2021
We are yello brick, we create experiences, interventions and games that bring people together sometimes big, sometimes small and always placing the audience at the centre of the story.
We are a small team with one full time member of staff and one part time member of staff and a creative director.
Our mission is to make the world more playful.
The amount of activity we do in a year differs year to year as our work is client and project based. Sometimes we will make epic site specific pieces that have groups of audiences explore a city and other times we will make quiet interventions that give people a moment to think and reflect.
What is your motivation for taking environmental action?
We care about the climate crisis and want our business to reflect our personal values.
What is your level of environmental ambition?
We would like the day to day running of the business to have the least amount of environmental impact possible. When working with clients we wish for every project we are involved in to be considering its environmental impact as a key part of the creation process. Ensuring that we are following the principles of reduce, reuse and recycle wherever possible.
What are your main impacts, specific to the nature and size of your activities?
The day to day running of the business:
Office Heating
Electricity Consumption (Lighting, Charging, Kettle, Microwave, Toaster, Fridge)
Office Water Usage
Office Bins
Printing
Online digital storage including emails and other digital platforms such as Google, Adobe and other cloud storage
Projects and Events:
Travel
Additional Device Usage
Additional Electricity (sometimes cameras, theatre lighting, sound, projection)
Costumes, Set and Props
Additional Printing
What are your key environmental commitments given the nature and level of your impacts?
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle - We will take this principle into the heart of what we do.
Reduce
We have implemented a double sided printing policy for all office printing. There are some occasions where this is not possible such as scripts for audio recording and some design printing. All printing is recycled.
Office Heating use has been reduced and we ensure only parts of the building that are in use are heated.
Lights are only switched on when outdoor light is not sufficient. Lighting is only switched on in areas that are in use. Toilet lights are on an automatic switch.
Our office water use is minimal but we commit to only use a small amount of water for washing up and ensure we only boil the amount of water necessary.
Minimise the amount of digital storage that we use i.e. deleting emails and documents that are not needed for future reference.
When creating shows or experiences that use a significant amount of energy we will ensure that it is only in use for the minimum amount of time necessary and ensure a switching off equipment system is in place for breaks and end of day.
yello brick to use public transport where feasible and implement a one vehicle policy for all work trips.
We will consider the environmental impact of all props, costumes and set materials and their impact at the end of the life of the experience. Ensuring that where possible we use materials that can be reused or recycled at the end of their life.
Reuse
We have implemented a scrap paper system for all single sided printing.
We reuse costumes wherever possible within remounting of shows and experiences and often utilise existing costume and props wherever possible to reduce the need to buy or replace items.
We will donate any useful props, costumes or set materials that we do not store and reuse to charity or to other arts organisations that may be able to make use of them.
Recycle
We have always recycled office waste but as part of this action plan we have now added additional tetra pak recycling for the office milk cartons.
We are also investigating the possibilities of introducing food waste recycling or composting within the office and hope to implement this before the next policy review.
Any props, costumes or set materials which can not be donated will be recycled and we will avoid our impact on increasing landfill waste as much as possible.
What other key environmental commitments do you have?
Invest
We want to make a commitment to choosing environmentally friendly options even when they are more expensive. E.g using an environmental printer for event materials. This will take immediate effect in all yello brick budgets and we will encourage clients to do the same on projects where we do not manage the budget.
We want to invest time and money into our environmental choices and into educating ourselves further.
Learn
We want to invest and consider ways and methods that we can limit our impact and investigate whether we can become carbon neutral as well as different ways we can offset any activity that has a higher carbon footprint than our usual activity.
Who is responsible for reviewing your environmental policy and when and how is this done?
Shane Nickels will be responsible for policy review each year and this will be done every July.
How have you developed an environmental action plan? How is it monitored, reviewed and updated, by whom and when?
We have set small achievable goals within a year's time frame. As a small team we must allow time for change to take place. We are already very environmentally conscious but we know we can always do more. We will monitor this every year and make new action plans based on our achievements as part of the policy review.