LeCake Train – Chapter 2
Cultural activities, which include everything from art exhibitions and music concerts to theater performances and film festivals, have a notable ecological impact. This impact, often referred to as the “cultural carbon footprint,” encompasses the emissions generated by these activities.
Part 1
Presented by Héloïse Lesimple from The Shift Project
Editing:
Kevin Nivard
Music:
Leo Sokolovsky
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LeCake is a European cultural innovation project which is part of the ecological transition.
It involves 8 partners from 6 European countries.
LeCake has 2 components :
LeCake Train (research, design, knowledge sharing, training, publications)
LeCake Lab (creation of sustainable European art projects)
LeCAKE Train is Funded by Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership and Label Paris Europe
La Transplanisphere — France, Paris latransplanisphere.com (coordinator)
Ex-Quorum — Portugal, Evora facebook.com/exquorum/
Teatro Rigodon — Italy, Rieti teatrorigodon.it
La métonymie / Le sas – France, Paris Le sas, groupe science-art-société
The Shift Project – France, Paris theshiftproject.org
Ohi Pezoume / Urban Dig project – Greece, Athens urbandigproject.org
Pro Progressione – Hungary, Budapest proprogressione.com
forum kunstvereint e.V. / Consol Theatre – Germany, Gelsenkirchen consoltheater.de
[Music] decarbonized culture is about how do we reduce or uh greenhouse gas emission also in the cultural Fields so this is the second work of the cake which is lead by the shift project so
I will start Maybe by remind some of you what the shift is so the shift is a nonprofit organization we are Association which uh is committed to uh put the climate and energy stakes in the
Center of our economic um world and uh in French society so we aim at influencing the debate on the energy transition so basically what we do is we write reports and then uh we try to influence uh
Decision makers so politics but also uh economic leaders and blah blah blah we are about 20 in uh in the shift but we have many many volunteers almost uh 20,000 so we have a lot of help from
Um volunteers we we will go back to later if you want to talk about the shift this is not the the main point today so I will put uh I will go fast on on the beginning uh why uh am
I here I’m here because I helped coordinate the report on um culture which was uh decarbonized culture which was one of the first report with julus bicycle who will tackle this stakes in the cultural field uh this is all the all the people who write the report uh with me and uh
You might see some of them when you come in Paris in November so energy and clate stakes in culture so first uh what is energy when we think about energy the first thing that comes in mind usually is uh electricity when you think energy is like uh when you plug something uh
And uh it give you electricity to make it work but energy uh is more complex energy helps you change temperature speed and shape so basically energy is at the core of all the world changing and the more energy you have the fastest your world is changing so really energy is
Uh is is making your world change but this is a simple rule this is physics rule so I won’t make it further but what you need to understand is your bodies are the first converters energy is everywhere so to have energy we eat biomass with food and then
Our bodies convert it into power so for instance you have what power your arms gave you and what your legs gave you your arm arms gave you 10 watts of power and your legs 100 Watts
Okay so what does it mean because what is like when you didn’t do a Physics course is like a really uh really abstract so for instance uh you know this object you you can use it to make soup
Etc this object has a of 400 watts so if you want to make it work through your body so through the the first converter that exist uh before all the industrial time you will have to have four
People uh on bikes like uh doing all the work with full power to just make it work and with the arms it will if you want um you will need need 20 arms to make it work just to to to have
A little bit of comparison uh a vacuum cleaner a vacuum cleaner is 10 cyclist and 100 arms a vacuum cleaner just to to make you understand when you have fossil energy fossil energy makes the energy you can use around you so much so much more powerful because oil makes plain uh buses
Cars boats it it it enables you to use more more powerful converter than your arms or your legs so basically what the shift trying to say for for 10 years now that oil is giving you superpowers
Because we all uh use superpowers through uh the way we move the way we eat the way we we we use machines and all these machines that we use every day for everything uh we use um all the machine
That are used in agriculture we use it to eat or the machine that we use to move around the world or the machine that we use to live in buildings that have been built all these machines this is
Thanks to Fossil FS so fils are at the at the core um the core functioning of our society and if you compare the power that the machines are giving you every day it’s as if 600 people will
Work for you around you every day like almost 600 slave are are at your disposal every minute of every day in accidental Society for the world is 200 only but we are in Europe it’s 600 just to to make you understand what machine what what machines are giving us what power they
Are giving us if you want um so one liter of oil what does it means one liter of oils if you put it in a car you can uh do approximately 13 kilometers in 13 minutes okay the power that
Is uh in one liter of oil compared to the power that your body that your arms gives you you will do the 13 kilometers in two mths if you need to push the car 30 minutes 2 months this is
The difference that fossil foods are giving you so what you see here is globally the the proof of what I’m what I’m saying you see the more uh the more oil we use the more energy we use uh
Uh years after use the Richer we get the more power we use this is uh the more um uh ggp we make so FY FS make the economic growth it has been like this since uh since the end of 19th
Century so what happens if we don’t have any more fucil fls globally we don’t have any more machines so we don’t we lose our power this is this is like the consequence of uh the uh the
This hypothesis so we spend a days using prothesis of a costume which is made of fil fruits which are powering the machines that we use and give us superpowers so no more superpowers if we don’t have fils yes but we have a renewable energy so if we replace uh fossil FS with renewable
Energy everything is going to be okay yes but uh we had uh 100% renewable world before which was for the Industrial Revolution and a world which is 100% renewable it can exist it has
Existed but it doesn’t go as fast as our world goes and uh it doesn’t enable us to feed um uh I think more than uh a few thousand hundreds of people so the one person renewable World
Already has already existed but it was not fit for the World As We Knew as we know it today for instance you have uh the part of energy that we use uh since uh the 19th century so the
First line you see it’s biomass basically is wood wood uh to heat wood to to make uh trains work so you see uh we use wood before then we discover coal and coal was really more useful to make
Trains go faster to and to make electricity uh call is the first thing that we put in all the electricity um factories then we discover oil and oil is uh the energy that we use for Mobility it’s
In the cars in in the trucks is really useful then you see gas gas was really useful to hit buildings because um it’s a it’s um you have more energy in it than in the coal and it was and in
Buas so it was easier to eat buildings with gas and then you see up up up up uh in all uh the bottom you have nuclear power and then you have renewable Powers this is the little bit up there
So what does that mean it mean that there is no substitution humans are using more and more energy as soon as they discover another type of energy they use it for another use there has been
No replacement and you see the carbon the carbon energy that we use is like 82% of the energy that we use worldwide so you see it’s you’ve seen it when you did the fresk the more energy we
Use uh the more emissions we have around us so you have all the emissions since the beginning of 19th cent in the end of 19th century but it’s okay we have the Paris agreement so we’re okay
Yes I know it was a great moment but you see uh this is the Paris uh agreement scenarios um the fourth sorry it’s in French so the the above you have scenario politic 2010 scenario politic actual so current politics of reducing emission of all uh the parties of the Paris agreement all
The countries that sign it and then you have some other scenarios and down there you have um you have the pass to be uh below two degrees the yellow pass to be below 1.8 degrees and uh
The last one the the the past to be below one 1.5 degrees so what we see that all the parties that take the agreements all the scenarios that are currently in Place their politics doesn’t meet the
Agreement so above it’s the reality and Below it’s what we sign for so they is like doesn’t doesn’t match but is it a problem five degrees is it hot is it really hot because five degrees is
Like what I go between 19 degrees to 25 degrees like it’s okay I just remove my sweater and it’s fine uh but not exactly if you think about about climate climate is not weather so you see minus5 degrees is the image on uh the left and basically minus five degrees all Europe was
Under ice there were kilometer and kilometer of ice in nor Europe like five meters of ice 3 kilometers of ice and then uh it was almost like CIA below so F France was like Siberia
There were no no no trees and uh it enabled to feed about uh 1,000 people maximum it was uh dry and cold so it was a totally different climate than today and the only difference is five
Degrees so four degrees what does it mean four degrees four degrees as you see in all the red uh you have half of South America you have half of Africa where uh every day of the year you are above the deathly threshold the deathly threshold maybe you’ve seen it when you did the
Climate fresk is when you have so much uh the temperature is below uh 37 degrees but there is so much humidity like more than 80 85% of humidity that you cannot sweat and if you cannot sweat you
Cannot cold you you canot make your body cold so if you’re above 37 the body your temp body temperature so you cannot cool yourself so you die because you’re too hot so so uh imagine how
Many people are going to leave in places on Earth where every day of the year if you go outside you die imagine how many climate refugees is going to make how many people are going to leave their
Homes so 4 degre is like very very very bad also what about three degrees which is currently the path we are on 3 degrees 3 degrees uh as you see all the part in purple and in red we’re going to
Have problems we’re going to have food supply instabilities we’re going to have TR tropical crop uh decline we have going to have Perma Frost uh degradation so we’re going to lose a lot of ice
We’re going to lose a lot of trees uh the the sea level is going to rise breath 3 degrees a lot a lot of problem also and two degrees so two degrees as you see is all the perturbation of the
Rainforce around the world so they’re going to have part of the world are going to make dryer and drier like all the mediterran sea is going to be more and more dry they’re going to be so
More and more fires um Water Supplies problem and are to be part of the world where going to rain so much they’re going to be flaws and all the kind of problems so they’re going to have a lot of
Perturbation but the the the way we need to understand climate change and I think you do now uh with all the the things you learn in the previous Workshop that is not uh it’s not like a it’s it’s not um a rise a slow rise it’s like
Um uh losing a step um it’s all the uh it’s the intensity of the natural catastrophy that going to be uh more stronger and more frequent so droughts storms heat waves Wildfire acidification of oan
And sea levels is not going to be a slow and easy to to apprehend it’s going to to be like uh really difficult to manage Ag and the difference if you wonder it’s um uh WWF infography which
Is interesting because it’s a comparison between um a climate change of two degrees and a climate change of 1.5 degrees just to understand that what change is not the content is the intensity and the frequence of everything happening like uh Coral briding um acidification water availability
And so on so you see between the yellow stuff and the red stuff the difference in percentage of risk of happening the more uh the climate is going to warm uh warm itself the more uh the more probity probability the probability of having a lot of problems are rising but I think
That that you already knew it and um you will have the presentation if you want to to see uh in more details all all this stuff so what do we have to do to stay below two degrees this is what you saw
In in the climate first but it mean that we have to reduce by 80% or emission of greenhouse gas by 2050 it means that if we were to reduce by 5% each year or emissions but what is 5% 5% is what
We had with the covid in 2020 when we stop every economic activities for two months this is minus 5% so if we want to reduce by 5% each year we will need to have another covid every year so
This is just to have a comparison of what is at stake and what efforts have to be made reducing our emissions uh is not an easy it’s not an easy task it’s almost impossible the way or
Society is made just to to to make you tackle the challenge so this is uh and if we don’t really reduced by 5% uh since 2019 we need to reduce by 10% after 2025 in two years the more
We wait the more we will have to reduce and uh the more it will be problematic for society to adapt because the changes are going to be so much that it will be difficult to to to to do and to
Support so here you have uh the carbon footprint of a French uh French person is around uh uh 10 tons of CO2 of CO2 uh by person per year so in 11 years we have to reduce it uh to four uh tons of
CO2 and then then in 20 years we have to reach two tons of Co of CO2 per person this is uh if you apply it to a person this is uh the path we have to do so we need a plan that’s what we try
To apply for the cultural field what is what does it mean for the cultural field to reduce its emission by 80% so first we can ask why do we need to do it because okay so uh every person
Needs to reduce by 80% uh each economic sector so okay culture but maybe there is some sectors that are far more polluting than culture now first uh why why because culture is uh an um a really important economic player in Europe it’s only almost like Agriculture and there is a lot of
People work in culture like 9 million people in Europe so there are a lot of people and what the hypothesis we had is that the culture is at the heart of transition but doesn’t know it and that
Is not represented in the energy climate Stakes so here you have the classical uh climate energy representation and it shows you the economic sectors that use the more fit fols and have the more emissions basically so of course you have transport but uh w why you have also power because
Um you have a lot of coal uh factories uh coal um electric centrals I don’t know uh the English for coal but the electricity is made of coal in China in India in us and even a part in in
Ger in Germany use a lot of of coal then there is uh transport industry and agriculture that use a lot of fossil fuels and then building with the gas we use gas to to heat buildings but we
Don’t see culture so so is culture really uh has culture an impact uh on the environment and why the culture needs to reduce its emission if it it is not represented in this uh in this chart because culture uh needs all the primary and secondary sectors to function
In need transport uh it needs all this sector and not only it has an impact but it also has a dependency on fossil FS so it’s at risk first Agriculture and food in culture nobody eats Everybody Eats uh the teams the artistic people uh Ines every every
Public itat so food as a significant source of emission in events is between 15 to 20% of the impact of cultural events the the food which is directly linked to uh the impact of Agriculture buildings there is a lot a lot of cultural buildings around Europe Museum
Theater operas a lot of buildings so these buildings needs to be heated they need to be clim um refreshed and they need to be um repaired and everything for this use machines use uh sment and every uh gas and everything that depends on fossil fuels so since culture
Add buildings and use energy it has an impact mobility and transp but uh we use a lot a lot of Mobility uh vectors to go around the world to see shows to see festivals to make ones to
Um uh to our artistic production so culture and leisures are the third most important cause of Mobility um in France 64% of people goes to the cinema with the car because uh everyone doesn’t live in a city and some of the cinemas facilities are outside
The cities so people basically took their cars to go to the cinema uh waste uh there a lot of was in festival and this is uh this summer The Muka festivals people leave the tents because they are so cheap like maybe they are two 10
T so everybody are leaving the stuff on the site 25,000 tons of waste uh of all the year the music festivals in UK this year uh 58% of people are saying they Le they left their stuff on
Site digital um digital uh for now is between 3 to 4% of the world uh emissions it’s almost like um plane transport like plane fields and and why culture as a link to the digital world is because uh 70% of what you watch online is culture cultural content
So European culture is at risk because it depends on fossil fuels like any other sectors but the but uh without risk measurement but this was before uh the covid epidemic now it has changed and culture I think is there is a bit more um try to to measure more what’s going to
Happen so culture has an impact and a dependency on fil FRS so if energy and climate constraints call for a new way of thinking or economy a new way of thinking or transport or Mobility or buildings our industry the way we consume energy the way we
Use digital of course cultural activities needs needs to restructured itself also uh this is one of the slide that I I I present you um so the report uh the the main objective of the report
Was to say how that culture uh is going to reduce by 80% is greenhouse gas emission so we published in November 2021 like two years ago so things have changed since the report but the the main measures that we are um pushing and the way we think cultural events needs to decarbonize
Itself uh I think might be uh still relevant but we will discuss it I think uh for each chapter we will discuss um what some cultural actors did what we can do next uh maybe this
Measure is not more is not not relevant anymore or this is maybe almost a bad idea but um uh we will discuss it uh together um during the next online sessions and also in Paris in November
Through more case studies and practices so what I show you uh during uh the first uh part of um this session what that that there is the first thing there is climate climate change and the fact that we need to reduce uh our greenhouse gas emission and everyone must take a part in
This effort then there is the other constraint which like is coming from the back is that energy which is um the source of the our way of life and the way culture today is uh functioning uh
Is um may not be uh forever so the contraction in fossil fuel supplies which is going to Happ happen in Europe uh first because Europe is the only continent that uh maybe at the less um fossil
Fuel resources in its soil uh is going to happen I don’t know when but it’s going to happen so we need also to prepare for this contraction and to know how to do uh culture without oil so uh
These are the charts that I was mentioning to you uh before so you have here uh the oil production of the 16 main uh country suppliers so you have I um uh you have Norway you have Iraq you have Iran
You have um uh Kazakhstan Russia and everyone and you can see that all the oil production are going down this data is done uh by an an independent energy uh studies which is named restad and every oil suppliers are taking their data from them these data are worth like million
Euros they gave us the data for a few thousand Euros because uh our director know them he used to work with them so they did um we didn’t have to pay what the old producer needs to pay restart to
Have this data but these data are used by the oil production just to know that this is not because we are some climate activist that we are going to show you the downfall of the old production
Everyone has this data and you can say to me that ah we don’t know we can always discover some new um uh some new all resources and blah blah blah but uh uh they roam the world and for
Now they didn’t find so much new ones you can see um so globally you see that we are uh until 2030 the world uh won’t um uh won’t have some uh uh supplier problems but after 2030 is going really
Down so we need to prepare this this is for oil so uh this show you the million of barrels that are produced every day but there will still be oil but uh half the way we need and between uh Agriculture and culture I don’t know which one the political people are
Going to decide who needs oil this is this is also a poon who will be uh the first in line I can’t move okay so and now this is gas so you have uh the North Sea producer of gas so
This is less uh representative of the world of production but you can see that it’s basically the same until 2030 everything’s fine but after 2030 everything is going down and this is uh noty natural gas but basically if you look at Russia if you look at um China or us this this
Is the same the uh gas wheels are old and they are producing less and less gas so basically they are less so what does it means it means that we need uh it doesn’t we don’t have to cry and say that
Life is over but uh we have to be realistic and so we need to be preparing for crisis and constraints and you can see it’s a plan b or just a plan but if it exists if something bad happened you will
Be prepared I think it’s better than uh don’t think about it and say okay it won’t happen I don’t want to believe it I don’t want to believe that tomorrow there can be a world where I can’t
Have the energy I need when I need it so if you need to make a plan for crisis and constraint uh you need to take these two constraint into account the emergency of climate change the way we need to
Reduce our uh greenhouse gas emission and there is something that is not in my presentation in the climate change adaptation how do I adapt the way I do cultural events if I have heat
Waves if I have flood if I have fires how do I adapt and then there is the resiliency how can I do my activities if I have less fil fs and it might cost more so this is the what we call the
Double carbon constru constraint and this double carbon constraint culture needs to take this into account and this the what the report was to answer this double constraint this is I already told you lot of people lot of money in culture the fact that culture depends on uh other sectors like
Agriculture like Mobility like buildings like digital which are at uh the core of the impact and the dependency on rules and so what are the main uh proposition that we did in our report the first things to do there are two things first is training is exactly what we do understanding
What is energy why we need it and why is is it at the core of uh our economic cultural field what climate change uh means and why is it a problem so understanding these uh things which are not easy
To understand which is uh not something that we learned during our school time or during our um university time is really important because we need to understand this to know what to do next and to understand the constraints the dependency the resiliency and blah blah blah so train train
Train train and train the others and help all the train and make training program and then there is uh policies uh as an individual the impact we have if we want to be like per the perfect ecological uh person doesn’t uh it doesn’t change anything it’s like a drop of water in the
Ocean it doesn’t change anything but if everyone moves together it’s really powerful that’s why we need the public authorities to be a leaders on these matters and to push um the cultural sector the European Cal sector toward the same direction with ambitious policies through labeling through
Financing through incentives because otherwise there will be like few players who are going to be perfect but like a really small people in their corner and it won’t help the sector as a w to move for the sector as a World to Change we need strong policies we need ambitious one and
And that’s why we have to do lobbying and this is what the shift is trying to do but the more people will want strong policies the the more chance we have that they will happen so this is really important and the green New Deal in Europe is like really really important
Because this is what gave the push to the other European countries to move so which Dynamics um should happens in order to have a more resilient and ecological culture in Europe first the there was like five main dynamics that we um push in our reports first it was relocate activities
Be careful it doesn’t mean becomes nationalism is just thinking local not to do local C sure with only your National culture is to think that when an event happens in your territory you make it worth you use uh maybe uh a local catering maybe you use a local people to work in your
Cultural event you try to to use this cultural event to make the local economy Thrive through it so you think territory and then you try to make it count you don’t invite people for one
Day uh one day event maybe you’re trying to make it stay one week and have workshop and then maybe play in the next town you try to um make it worth their trip then slow down um going fast is a noil
Economy if you want to to be renewable you have to slow down we can’t do uh things as fast as we did if we want to uh share the world with sources so artists will continue to travel
But the need to reduce the number of trips and they need to have longer State longer stays sorry then we need to reduce the scales like monstrous events a festival with more than 4,000 people will never never be ecological if they are saying otherwise this is called
Greenwashing because the bigger you event you the bigger the the the you need then to have a public that comes from the the the the corners of the world and to have artists that are really big and they are international artist that will uh always drag people from everywhere to gather
In one place it’s better to have small events that moves around rather than one big event that drives everyone for all around the world you have to but we will discuss this measure more in the next uh session don’t worry there will be debates and everything don’t worry ecodesign
Um this is about the waste we’ve seen in the in the festival image that I’ve show you but of course uh we have to recycle we have to think uh scenographic um creation differently in order
To reuse things in order to stop wasting so much uh materials and then there read the harder part is about renouncement renouncement is hard but there is there is some practices that have a really high carbon footprint and we need to look at this practices like this activities
And say okay do we keep doing it or do we not it and if we don’t renounce it why we need to really interrog interrogate this practices and um all the technology that might go with it in order to to help um understanding uh these Dynamics we divided measures between uh different
Levels and there is some measures that every cultural actors can put in place that are easy to do it was the transparent measure it’s easy it doesn’t change the way you do your work and it doesn’t cost you anything for instance if I have a theater and I have maybe a cafeteria it
Doesn’t uh change uh my uh theator and the the fact that I produce play and that I I display them if uh my cafeteria goes vegetarian doesn’t change anything people are not coming to my theater because there is a burger in the cafeteria so doesn’t change anything maybe
I will make uh I will reduce my cost if I only propose like vegetarian meals and uh it’s easy to do is just a way of changing your way of thinking this is hard but this measure for
Instance doesn’t cost anything and is easy to do then there is the positive uh positive measures to stay in my example for instance if I’m staying in my cafeteria in my theater not only uh will my cafetaria will go vegetarian but they will also only um propose local and seasonal products so I
Would work maybe with Farmers around my CT maybe I will work with a different distributor but in order to have a positive impact on the local economy or another positive measure which is costly is to uh isolate my building because uh I will reduce it cost a lot but then I will reduce
My energy consumption and also I will make uh the building uh workers have some work and I will give money to a sector that needs to to to be pushed in order to have an um the uh energy transition
Then there is the hard ones the hard ones are the offensive and defensive measures defensive is not hard to do because defensive is renouncing but renouncing is hard to do because it changing your economic model you can find yourself like losing some economic opportunities or not going in the
Right direction uh if you if you ban energy intens intensive uh option so renouncing is really hard but this what we call defensive and it’s hard to do alone defensive is easy to to do if it comes
From National policies or european policies but it’s hard to do when you’re a cultural actors in just uh just as one player and then there is the offensive measure that you cannot do alone for
Instance if I want to ban um uh if I want to B the um the IES of um uh territorial exclusivity if I do it on my own it could be problematic for my structure and its economic model but
If a world region decided together that there is no more territorial exclusivity and they are going to work together in order to have a more um wellth thought uh ches of uh creation ex is it can be really really powerful but defensive option are really difficult to do uh alone sorry
This slide is in French uh I don’t know if I have it in English I might find it but this is the measures that that I’ve just explained but uh there there is some uh example in it but we
Will go back to it in the next in the next session don’t worry so so uh that’s it for today I I won’t show you the carbon Footprints of um festivals and uh theaters we will go into it in the next
Sessions but it was like to have the the main frame of the report of our report on decarbonized culture [Applause] oh