Environmental Sustainability
About UsAt Anvil Arts, we have committed ourselves to reducing our environmental impact, and throughout our operations we are becoming a more sustainable organisation.
Like many arts and cultural organisations across the UK, Anvil Arts have declared a climate emergency. We work with Julie's Bicycle, a national charity promoting environmental sustainability across the arts and cultural sector, and who advise us how we can reduce our carbon footprint, as well as following guidance from the Theatre Green Book.
ACHIEVEMENTS TO DATE
Our Venues
- We have replaced all foyer and backstage lighting with energy-saving LED bulbs
- In 2019, we replaced the majority of lighting in The Anvil's auditorium with energy-saving LED fixtures - reducing the amount of energy consumed by each light by 90%
- We have upgraded our Building Management System, allowing us to be more precise in heating or cooling areas of the buildings only when they are in use
- We changed washroom products to paper which is more sustainable and 100% traceable. 88% of the wood used to make the paper is from certified forests and 12% from controlled forests. For every tree used, four new seedlings are planted in its place
Bars
- Our foyer bars are stocked with fantastic local produce from producers based within 50 miles of The Anvil, including gins, beers, ice cream, coffee, and sparkling wines
- We have eliminated all single-use plastics from Front of House areas, bringing in either reusable ware or compostable single-use vegware
- We no longer sell plastic water bottles and now offer cans of water. This will mean over 12,000 fewer plastic bottles used each year. Cans are much easier and quicker to recycle, and typically contain up to 70% recycled material, compared to around 3% for plastic bottles

Printed and online materials
- We now email more copies of our brochures than we print
- Our brochures are printed using sustainably sourced (FSC certified) carbon balanced paper and water-based inks
- We use a printing company with green credentials - their presses are low energy, alcohol free LED which consume 30% less energy than conventional presses
- We have switched many of our administrative systems to cloud-based software reducing power used and carbon emissions