The team at HOME are celebrating after winning the awards for the Promotion of Environmental Sustainability at this year’s Manchester Culture Awards.
The award judges said: “HOME are an exemplar for sustainability within the cultural sector, committed to minimising their impact on the environment.”
Dave Moutrey, Executive Director and CEO of HOME, said: “I am delighted that HOME has received this award in recognition of our whole organisation commitment to environmentally sustainable business practices. We have been working to reduce our impact on the environment for almost 10 years not to win awards but because it is important, however it is brilliant to have our work recognised.”
Debbie Bell, Building and Environmental Manager at HOME, said: “Winning the award is a proud achievement for all the team at HOME. We signed up to Culture Declares an Emergency in April 2019, leading on action in all we do and continuing to engage all in the journey to a net-zero Manchester.”
Earlier this year, HOME was among the arts and culture venues and creative organisations and individuals across the country who teamed up to declare a Climate and Ecological Emergency as part of a series of initiatives organised by Culture Declares Emergency.
HOME support and advocate Zero Carbon Manchester 2038 and we’ve committed to being no single-use plastic by 2020. HOME engages all staff from the moment they join the team – with sustainability inductions, Green Newsletters, weekly sharing, staff training and strategic campaigns and activities such as plant-based lunches and swap shops.
Having developed a sector-specific Carbon Literacy training package, HOME is recognised as the first arts venue in the world to train 100% staff in Carbon Literacy. All staff actions are collated and feed into HOME’s environmental action plan, driving change through accountability. With two in-house certified trainers, HOME delivers training packages to all staff, as well as to stakeholders and contractors. HOME also delivers bespoke training packages for other arts and cultural organisations, and this year trained MAST and URBACT C-Change partner cities.
Our two honeybee hives are cared for by four HOME staff apiarists. With hive inspections live-streamed through the website, HOME engages both staff and digital audiences, driving support for biodiversity and eco-systems in Manchester city centre. We share our learning with our city peers and our wider networks both nationally and internationally.
We recognise that every member of our team has our full part to play in acting for a planet-positive future and we inspire change through creative innovation, sharing and inspiration, and this is just a small example of HOME’s sustainable activity. To find out more, and how you can get involved, click here.