Environmental Responsibility
We must not only do everything possible to reduce our environmental impact but also inform our audiences about the ongoing climate crisis.
At LAT, we aim to ignite the imaginations of the youngest minds and we want you to join us in our fight against climate change. We all have the power to create change, no matter how big or how small.
Our Aims
Reduce: We are working to decrease our energy use, reduce the waste we send to landfill and decrease the carbon cost of our productions both in-house and on tour.
Understand: We will collect data from our organisation to understand our environmental impact. We will create Carbon Literacy Training to share that knowledge with everyone we work with.
Advocate: We will continue to programme work which educates children around the ongoing climate crisis, and use our position to encourage environmentally responsible behaviour within our audiences.
Here’s what we are doing…
Reducing Energy
From February 2023-2024, we took part in the Mayor’s Business Climate Challenge with the goal of reducing our building’s energy consumption by 10%. With small changes on-site, we were delighted that we have managed to do this, reducing our energy consumption by 10.7%.
All of our electricity meters are now Smart Meters, allowing us to track and then reduce our energy use across both sites.
Community Garden Award
The garden at Little Angel Studios won ‘Best Community Garden’ at the Islington Bloom Awards 2024. The garden area is tended by an intergenerational garden club formed from our local community members. Children come with their adults and learn about nature, planting and the environment in a practical way.
We are delighted that this project and the hard work of our community has been recognised in this way.
Carbon Literacy Training
In October 2024 we ran our first Carbon Literacy Training, accredited by the Carbon Literacy Project. The training helps our staff to understand the carbon costs and impacts of everyday activities, and empowers them to take action to fight the climate crisis on an individual, community and organisational level.
1/3 of our staff are now carbon literate, and we plan to run the training annually to increase this proportion.
Theatre Green Book
The Theatre Green Book supports theatres and theatre makers to create productions and run their buildings in an environmentally responsible way, but encouraging the tracking and reducing of materials and energy used to create work.
LAT are currently accredited in the Preliminary stage, as we are working towards achieving Basic Standard across all of our activity. We are aiming to achieve this by early 2026, and have already design ‘Snowflake’ co-production with Birmingham Rep and Polka Theatre) to Basic Standard.
Crafts from Recycled Materials
Across our community activities, we have been working hard to encourage participants to use recycled materials in their crafts and projects.
Sew, Knit and Make, (our adult resident sewing and knitting session) have been repurposing old fabrics and mending clothes.
The family after school craft session, Crafternoon, spent the whole of the summer term crafting from recycling household objects.
We are currently collecting bottle tops at the studios, in the garden, for a planned mosaic craft in the coming months. Please bring by any bottle tops from milk cartons and juice bottles and donate them to our collection.
Additional Actions
We are working on a wide variety of actions and initiatives to improve our environmental responsibility. Some of these are listed below
We purchased a new company van (for touring our productions) in 2024. The van is ULEZ compliant, meaning it satisfies higher air quality standards, and therefore much more environmentally friendly than our previous vehicle. It remains a priority for our next van purchase to be a hybrid or electric vehicle.
Our offices have a switch off policy so all staff turn the PCs off when they finish using them in order to save energy.
Our waste is separated into three streams: general waste, recycling and crisp packet recycling. This means that we send as little as possible to landfill.
We continue to programme work that is challenging and educates children around the ongoing climate crisis. This includes productions (There’s a Rang-Tan in my Bedroom & Other Stories) and workshops
At our annual street party, we have a Clothes Swap where residents can donate and swap clothes that they are no longer using. This encourages reuse of items and keeps clothing in circulation – stopping it from entering landfill. We have a similar system for a Book Swap outside of the studios.
We have twice held a staff litter pick in St Mary’s Church Garden, right next to the Theatre. Staff went to this local green space and cleared litter from the area to support our immediate community. We aim for this to be an annual event.
Here’s what you can do…
Recycle
Bring your crisp packets to our venues to recycle. We are a collection hub so we will recycle your crisp and snack packets in bulk. So far we have recycled over 20Kg of crisp packets through the scheme.
Travel
We encourage you to travel to our venue using public transport. You can find out more about how to find us here.
Donate
There are two projects that we are currently fundraising for:
- Solar Power We are seeking funding to install a solar installation on the roof of both our buildings. This will allow us to harness the sun’s energy to offset some of our costs. Including some retiling of the roof, we estimate that this will cost around £115,000. After a sustainability survey in 2023, we found that the next big step we can take in reducing our carbon output would be to source our energy from sustainable sources.
- LED Lights We would like to replace our lighting stock with LED bulbs. These lights use 80% less energy than a standard stage light, and one LED can take the place of three of our current bulbs. This would make our show set up much more energy efficient. The cost of changing 1/6 of our lighting stock comes in at £20,000.
If you can donate, the following amounts would help us enormously towards our goals.
- £100 covers the cost of carbon literacy certification for 10 staff members
- £2,000 pays for an LED light to replace our current, less energy efficient, stage lights.
- £4,000 pays for an electrician to work on the installation of solar panels on our theatre roof.
- £8,000 covers the material cost of a solar power system on our theatre roof.
You can donate any amount below, or email development@littleangeltheatre.com to find out more.
🙏 Donate now
If you are able to support us, any donation, large or small, will make a huge difference.
All amounts are welcome. Thank you!
We believe it is our responsibility to reduce our net carbon output and encourage others to do so. We are committed to reducing our carbon emissions in our buildings, productions, workshops and tours.
As a public-facing institution, LAT understands that it has a responsibility to use our position to set a good example, inform and educate young people in their responsibility to the environment.