SUSTAINABILITY ROADMAP

In March 2022, we launched our Sustainability Roadmap as part of POP26, a climate carnival of debate, conversation and action in DIY music. This Sustainability Roadmap lays out our plan to limit our impact on the environment and ultimately become the first carbon-neutral grassroots music venue in the North of England, and one the first in the UK.

We are committed to ensuring that we create a place that has a net positive environmental impact. This roadmap sets the course for that sustainability journey. Each year we will track our progress against it and seek to improve as we go.

Written by Nathalie Candel, in partnership with Future Yard and Liverpool John Moores University’s Low Carbon Eco Innovatory.

Download and read: FUTURE YARD SUSTAINABILITY ROADMAP 2022 (PDF)

Future Yard was established to reimagine the role of a live music venue, to find new ways of bringing about profound social and cultural change in Birkenhead, utilising the power of music to bring about these changes. Through our training programmes, artist development work, community activities and inclusive programming, we’ve started along this road. But, if we are to achieve true change, we must tackle the great challenge of our times: the climate emergency.

Our venue is run by Future Yard CIC (Community Interest Company) – a non-profit focused on delivering Future Yard’s vision. We operate on a ‘triple bottom line’, judging success across our social and environmental impact, as well as financial. At the outset, we committed to embracing the challenge of operating as sustainably as possible and set the long-term goal of becoming the first carbon-neutral grassroots music venue in the region and one of the first in the UK.

We have been working in partnership with Liverpool John Moores University’s Low Carbon Eco-Innovatory to shape the long-term design of our building, understand our energy consumption and develop a range of policies to ensure we operate as sustainably as possible.

The live music industry has an acute sustainability problem. We are committed to ensuring that we create a place that has a net positive environmental impact, one that fundamentally takes carbon out of the atmosphere and plastic out of our oceans, not one that adds to the problem.

This roadmap sets the course for our sustainability journey. Each year we will track our progress against it and seek to improve as we go.

The future is (a green) Birkenhead.

Craig G Pennington
(Future Yard Co-Founder)