Touring dance company leaps to Silver Accreditation in its first year of iiE Membership

balletLORENT reduced its electricity use by 4%, its gas use by 20%, and its business accommodation by 55% – outstanding reductions in its first year of membership.

Who are BalletLORENT?

Established in 1993 by Artistic Director Liv Lorent, balletLORENT is one of the UK’s most distinctive dance companies touring the UK. Its ambition for the future is to increase its relevance to audiences on a national and international scale, and to continue to create work that engages many communities, however it wishes to do this in a socially conscious and sustainable way.

Why did it win Best Newcomer at the iiE Awards 2023?

In order to embed sustainability as a core value, balletLORENT joined iiE in 2023 as part of Become Green Together, a strand of Going Green Together, a partnership between VONNE, Cumbria CVS, Cumbria Action for Sustainability, Genee and SmartCarbon. The programme offered iiE Accreditation, through our North East Hub and partnership with Genee, with all participants aiming for Bronze. However, through hard work and strong staff engagement, the company was able to attain Silver, with an overall score of 81%, an incredible achievement within its first year. balletLORENT’s fast progress earned it the title of Best Newcomer at the 2023 iiE Awards.

What made FastTrack to Silver right for balletLORENT?

The iiE auditors at genee were impressed with the level of detail and commitment shown in the development of balletLORENT’s EMS and capturing of their carbon data. balletLORENT joined iiE with some processes around environmental management already in place, so had foundations on which to build. The company had a basic Environmental Policy and Action Plan in place and, as an Arts Council England NPO, already collected lots of environmental data. This meant that balletLORENT had historic data from which to build baselines, set reduction targets and analyse performance. Further, travel was a key area of focus for the company; monitoring, managing and decarbonising transport is a integral part of the journey to Silver.

How did it achieve Silver Accreditation and Best Newcomer in one year?

The company worked to develop and implement a good Environmental Management System, which exceeded requirements for Silver and demonstrated its commitment to seeking long term solutions to sustainability.

The Environmental Policy and Action Plan were significantly improved and expanded and now have meaningful, trackable and achievable targets, which are reviewed every three months. Further, by comparing data from the baseline to current year, the company was able to track progress and see that it had achieved outstanding reductions across its nominated resources.

A Waste Management System was introduced, which has already seen results in the proportion of composted waste. The company is on track to increase this proportion from 0.34% in 2022/23, to over 9% in 2023/24, well ahead of its 2% target increase.

Carbon footprinting, using smart carbon, helped identify touring as balletLORENT’s biggest environmental impactor. The size and scale of its shows means that large sets are impossible to avoid and these require transport around the country when on tour, as recreating them locally is unfortunately not possible. The company developed a travel policy and plans to work with its transport provider to calculate the shortest geographical routes, minimise the number of trips, and also review who it uses, as there may be more environmentally sustainable options out there.

Developing strong lines of communication, including regular reporting to the board of trustees, was crucial to the company’s success and efforts were made to engage other local organisations with its journey.

What next?

Despite all balletLORENT’s achievements so far, it is acutely aware there is still work to be done. As it moves forward, it will increase the number of resources it measures, and set a Net Zero target. The company has already held discussions with peer organisations within the arts sector to learn how they are approaching Net Zero, and will encompass this into future policies and plans. The focus will be on balletLORENT’s big ‘carbon’ challenge: how to minimise transport-related carbon emissions whilst running a touring contemporary dance company.