We are pleased to announce Sotheby's Institute of Art-London has successfully qualified as a 2024 Active Member with Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC).
To achieve Active status, Sotheby's Institute of Art-London had to demonstrate that the organisation had implemented environmentally responsible best practice in line with GCC guidance.
Active Membership is not a certification of sustainability nor a claim that we are doing things perfectly. We’re all doing our best to assess, report and reduce our impact, setting targets in line with science, taking any actions we can and working out other solutions as we go.
As we prepare our students for careers in the art world, we believe our greatest impact in addressing the climate emergency can be achieved through them. In shaping the next generation of leaders, it is our mission to ensure that they are equipped with the mindset and tools to carry out their careers in an environmentally responsible way, and to drive forward the fight against climate change. As such, we have committed to:
- Providing every Master’s student with insight into the sustainability issues facing the art world, and the opportunity and encouragement to engage positively in tackling them
- Using our education skills to forward the debate and issues relating to art world sustainability
How we are demonstrating this commitment:
- Sustainability content is taught across all four of our MA programmes
- Our MA in Luxury Business students work with a fashion and jewellery industry expert to learn about Conscious Capitalism, the UN Global Compact and cutting-edge sustainable business practice in the field
- We have validated a focused elective unit, Sustainable Art Business available to all MA students to deepen their understanding. We believe we are the first higher education institution to offer this material specific to the art world
- Our library provides relevant resources to provide students with the most up to date thinking about art world sustainability
- We are embedding sustainability into our art business incubator, The Enterprise Studio
- We raise the profile of art world sustainability in talks, events and publications.
We are proud to provide a springboard for students to create a more sustainable art world:
- We provided seed funding, mentoring and introductions to student entrepreneurs in launching two sustainability-focused art world business Spongy Bags and smART Logistics.
- We brokered a student placement with Gallery Climate Coalition
- We support students developing and contributing their own research into sustainability and the art world via the master’s dissertation
While we drive forward the understanding of art world sustainability, we continue to consider our own activity and operations. We commit to addressing our own outputs by:
- Joining the Gallery Climate Coalition and pledging to reduce our carbon emissions by 2030, from a 2021/22 baseline
- Regularly calculating the carbon footprint of our operations, to track progress towards this target
- Undertaking more efficient use of our building, sharing the space with other institutions
The actions we are taking to support these targets include:
- Maintaining a Green Team with representatives from different parts of the organisation, that meets regularly to track progress on all these targets and actions
- Banning single use plastic for all in-house catering of events
- Providing students with reusable water bottles to minimise waste
- Reviewing our suppliers to prioritise environmentally sustainable operatives
- Reviewing all field study travel to reduce flights to a minimum
- In recognition of our 2021/22 CO2 emissions, we have donated £5000 to SolarAid
- In recognition of our 2022/23 CO2 emissions, we invested £3500 in replacing inefficient lighting with energy efficient LEDs.
We encourage all of our peers and colleagues to visit the GCC website to learn more about the initiative and how to get involved.
