Climate-Forward Culture: Practical Sustainability | ZMINA:Resilience Capacity Building

Aims

This capacity building session situated arts and culture within the broader transformational change required for a sustainable future — offering a systemic understanding of the intersection between culture and climate, a practical framework for identifying and acting on environmental impacts, and a forward-looking perspective on what it means to embed climate justice into organisational practice. Drawing primarily on the Scottish cultural context, and structured around a combination of conceptual frameworks and concrete case studies, the session was designed to give participants a clear starting point: knowing where they have direct control, where they can exercise influence, and where they need to advocate for structural change.

The session aimed to help participants:

• Understand the four dimensions through which arts and culture intersect with climate change: climate justice, net zero and mitigation, influence and collaboration, and climate resilience and adaptation
• Apply the control/influence/concern model to map their organisation's specific environmental impacts and identify where action is most achievable
• Learn from concrete case studies of Scottish cultural organisations that have made measurable progress on environmental sustainability
• Understand how arts and culture can contribute to climate action beyond reducing their own emissions — through their unique capacity to reach new audiences, build community, and frame the future
• Explore the concept of just resilience — ensuring that climate action contributes to a fair and sustainable transition for all communities
• Begin to develop an organisational approach to climate action that is proportionate, honest about limitations, and connected to systemic change

Trainer

Caro Overy is Green Arts Manager at Culture for Climate Scotland — a Scottish charity founded in 2011, originally as Creative Carbon Scotland, by Dr Ben Twist, who had worked as a theatre director for 25 years before studying carbon management. Culture for Climate Scotland believes that arts and culture have an essential role in achieving the transformational change required for a sustainable future, and works with artists, organisations, and strategic bodies both nationally and internationally. Caro brings fourteen years of expertise in sustainability applied to the cultural sector, leading the Green Arts programme to support cultural organisations and artists through bespoke training, events, and strategic environmental reporting. She holds a postgraduate degree in Environment, Culture and Society, previously worked in sustainability at the University of Edinburgh for seven years, and is a practising community musician.

Content

The webinar moved through four interconnected parts, bookmarked by two caption cards that replace interactive poll segments: an opening that frames the session's scope and builds the case for climate justice as its foundation; a continuous block covering net zero emissions data, cultural influence, and climate adaptation; the Control/Influence/Concern framework with case studies from Scottish organisations; and a final section on embedding just resilience through the embedded artist methodology. Throughout, the session drew heavily on data gathered by Culture for Climate Scotland from approximately 120 organisations regularly funded by Creative Scotland — the main public arts funder in Scotland — as a means of grounding abstract principles in sector-specific evidence.

1. Introduction and Climate Justice
2. Net Zero, Cultural Influence, and Adaptation
3. The Control/Influence/Concern Framework
4. Embedding Just Resilience

The session was held on June 10, 2026 in English.