Have you read your Green Book?

Taking the Environmental Vows at Opera North

Greetings!

The Podium will be taking a week off from Don’s Weekly Listen to prepare a longer-form article, to be released later this week. In the meantime, I wanted to share with you one of the more amusing things I’ve found in my recent conducting industry travels:

As part of their commitment to environmental sustainability, a number of theaters (sorry, theatres) in the UK have signed on to a carbon reduction program called Theatre Green Book. (By their choice of name, I’m assuming their knowledge of Gaddafian Libya is limited).

In a time of financial stress for many opera companies, including in the UK (remember when the English Touring Opera canned all its ‘non-diverse’ orchestra players last year?), Opera North in Leeds is creating a new position for a Sustainability Champion to supervise Green Book implementation in Opera North shows. By reading the job description (below), one could be forgiven for assuming that a significant part of the world’s climate crisis hinges on the selection of hardware for the set of Don Giovanni.

This “Carbon Literate” Champion would be charged with hosting environmental trainings to share his/her/their literacy with members of the company, tracking the origins and “chain of custody” of each piece of material used for sets or costumes from a T-shirt to a piece of lumber, and ensuring that all key production associates sign and adhere to a Green Production Agreement, which has more than a whiff of the ecclesiastical.

The agreement recommended in the Green Book itself begins: “We will work collectively to achieve the above standard as set out in the Theatre Green Book: Sustainable Productions. Together, we will achieve the creative vision for this production through parameters that reflect the reality of the climate crisis. We have read and understood the principles of the Theatre Green Book. We understand what this means for our practice, and what we can expect from our colleagues and collaborators.”

Naturally, these goals cannot be achieved without “nurtur[ing] a working culture in which there is no place for bullying, which promotes transparency and inclusion, and sees diversity as the norm.” After all, what good is sustainability if it’s not done diversely?

Here is the text of Opera North’s job posting:

Opera North is seeking to appoint a Sustainability Champion to track, guide and support our work towards creating a sustainable opera season in autumn 2023.

This person would be:

—Carbon Literate trained and have an understanding of carbon calculators

—Have experience with environmental sustainability

—Have an understanding of theatre production management

The role would involve:

—Creating a Green Production Agreement that is then signed by everyone involved in the production

—Ensuring all key members of the team have undertaken carbon literacy training

—Collating the Materials Inventory according to the Green Book Baseline and Intermediate productions

—Lead the post-show evaluation of the season against its Green Book target

It is recognised that the Sustainability Champion doesn’t own sustainability for the season as sustainability is a shared responsibility. But the Champion will ensure that everyone involved to take ownership of the role they play in contributing to a sustainable show. The Champion will not be made to feel like a policeman but will be there to support all the Opera North teams in achieving the sustainability aims.

The Sustainability Champion will contribute and support, help think through problems and brainstorm solutions, point team members to advice, and act as a conduit in making sure the team acts as a unit on sustainability matters.

Opera North, by the way, is a veritable wellspring of material for skeptics of woke encroachments on music. The Opera is also currently offering a fellowship exclusively for female conductors, “in recognition of the [preposterously incorrect] fact that talented female conductors are less likely to find a way into the industry than their male counterparts.” But that’s a topic for another post.

Have a great week, and more to come soon!

DB