SPICe Spotlight | Solas air SPICe
This blog is one of a series that illustrate how climate change relates to policy areas covered by each subject committee.
In Scotland all public bodies are required to contribute towards achieving Scotland’s emissions targets. As part of this they have to produce annual climate change reports and set a target date for achieving net zero emissions from their own operations. Reports from public bodies aligned to the remit of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee include Creative Scotland, Historic Environment Scotland, National Museums Scotland and The National Galleries of Scotland.
This blog will focus on the areas of responsibility and influence of Creative Scotland and Historic Environment Scotland.
There are broadly two aspects to how arts and culture contribute to the goal of Net-zero and tackling and adapting to climate change. The first is directly by reducing the emissions of the sectors. The second is the role that arts and culture may have to support large-scale behaviour and attitudinal change in the population.
Creative Scotland is the public body that supports the arts, screen and creative industries. In April 2022, Creative Scotland published its Climate Emergency and Sustainability Plan. This said:
“The cultural and creative sectors have an essential role to play in helping Scotland to prepare for the climate-changed future. As well as working on our internal plans, we will use our funding, our policies, our development role and our influence to help the culture and creative sectors reduce their own emissions and adapt to climate change. We will work to help cultural organisations, artists and individual creative practitioners, with their wide audiences and unique insights and skills, to reach and influence parts of society that others cannot.”
Environmental Sustainability is one of Creative Scotland’s six funding criteria. This means that organisations or individuals are asked to demonstrate how they have considered environmental sustainability in the design and delivery of their activity in their funding applications. This could be in relation to minimising the environmental impact or showing how the work includes themes that are linked to the causes and impact of the climate emergency and/or climate justice. Creative Scotland explains:
“We want to see the organisations and individuals we fund become agents of change in the fair and equitable transformation of Scotland to a thriving, net-zero, climate-ready nation.”
Creative Scotland’s Environmental Sustainability Review 2023/24 referred to the work of Culture for Climate Scotland who produce helpful reports on the emissions resulting from the work of a range of publicly funded cultural organisations across Scotland. The most recent was published in January 2025 and looked at 2022-23.
Travel and energy use accounted for 99% of organisations’ core emissions (i.e. excluding the emissions of audience travel etc.). Culture for Climate Scotland concluded that:
The report noted said that emissions from audience travel was reported to be “over 12000 tonnes CO2e, almost 4000 tonnes greater than all core emissions combined”. However, only few organisations reported emissions from their audience travel suggesting that this is underreporting the total.
The report notes that there are tensions between a desire to tour and take artistic expression around Scotland and beyond, and reducing emissions.
There is also likely to be a tension around attracting audiences to events, particularly those that travel significant distances, and a desire to reduce the environmental impact of arts and culture.
The Scottish Government grant in aid (GIA) to Creative Scotland does not include capital funding. Creative Scotland’s grants to organisations which are funded through GIA cannot currently include a capital element which could be used to support building projects. Creative Scotland can support small scale capital costs through grants programmes funded by the National Lottery and the Scottish Government provides capital funding directly to other organisations (e.g. National Galleries of Scotland).
Arts and culture can have significant impact on politics and opinion. A recent example is Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which highlighted the campaign of postmasters across the UK who were accused and convicted of theft. This led to political action and Acts of Parliament in both Westminster and Holyrood to provide redress.
While the issues facing postmasters was clearly very different to the challenges of tackling climate change, the 2020 Culture Strategy for Scotland suggested that “heritage and culture can transform public thinking to transition to a net zero society and economy in tackling the climate emergency”. Creative Scotland says that “tackling the climate emergency can only be achieved through transformational, rather than incremental, change”. It also has said:
“We recognise the powerful role that the sectors we support have in influencing society through their programming focus, drawing on the potential for arts and creativity to help everyone to envisage alternative futures.”
Creative Scotland’s Environmental Sustainability Review 2023/24 highlighted a range of projects and organisations it had funded. These included a dance project, a multimedia work, visual art, theatre and community arts.
The Culture for Climate Scotland report also highlighted three examples where “organisations who use their influence and their programming to create change beyond their organisational boundaries”. These were community arts projects or organisations which brought people together to consider and develop responses to climate change: Atlas Arts’ School of Plural Futures; Programmes by The Barn in Banchory; and The Stove Network’s community hub which hosts a monthly Climate Kitchen.
Academic research has highlighted a number of potential ways in which cultural and creative industries can support people and communities to engage in more sustainable activities. A recent study looking at “the impacts of creative and cultural climate action initiatives” in Ireland concluded:
“Addressing the climate crisis necessitates multifaceted efforts across all sectors at local, national, and international levels. … This study demonstrates that targeted creative participatory interventions can foster high-quality engagement in climate action by strengthening community connections, cultivating a sense of collective effort, and deepening individuals’ connection to nature – impacts that may contribute to sustained climate action over the long term.”
One of the gaps in knowledge identified by this paper and others (e.g. Rice et al (2019)) is the impact of the arts on actual behaviours in relation to climate change (as opposed to reported intentions).
Creative Scotland has said that it will develop an evaluation approach to understand how it and the cultural and creative sectors contribute to a “transformational change in society, including climate justice.”
Historic Environment Scotland’s (HES) role is to investigate, care for and promote Scotland’s historic environment. HES looks after historic properties on behalf of Scottish Ministers (e.g. Edinburgh Castle) as well as providing strategic leadership in the sector. It is worth noting that HES’ remit includes providing advice and support on all traditional buildings, i.e. those built prior to 1919.
In its Guide To Climate Change Impacts, HES says that there will be an impact on its estate of increased rainfall, more frequent extreme weather events, increasing temperatures, rising seas and shifting coasts. It also highlighted a longer growing season and changing visitor habits as other impacts on historic sites. HES also stated:
“The historic environment is not just about visitor attractions. Most of us interact with the historic environment on a daily basis. This can be through the buildings and places where we live, work and meet to socialise, as well as the physical built infrastructure we depend on. …
“The historic environment is a part of our lives. As such it is important not only to address the impact of climate change on it, but to continuously develop our understanding of the benefits and wider role of the historic environment for society. As we respond to the reality of climate change in new ways, we can take the opportunity to highlight how the historic environment demonstrates resilience and adaptability, as a lesson for the future.”
Over the past few years, HES has been undertaking work on inspecting and repairing high-level masonry at hundreds of sites across Scotland. This led to the closure or partial closure of sites. HES explicitly linked this to climate change, saying, “changing climate is accelerating the deterioration of many of our historic buildings, with increasing instances of stonework decay and masonry fall posing risks to visitors, staff, and the fabric of the sites themselves.”
HES has a current Climate Action Plan and an Adaptation Plan. Climate change and delivering Net Zero are also a key part of its overall strategy.
HES’ current strategy, Our Past, Our Future, covers the period 2023-28. The first of the three strands of this strategy is on delivering the transition to net zero. Under this strand are three outcomes:
HES has developed a baseline assessment from which to measure progress of its strategy and set out what success will look like under each of the outcomes.
HES reported that in 2022-23, emissions from all its operations and the properties it looks after totalled 3,866 tonnes of CO2e. It said that this represented a reduction of 28% since 2018-19.
It highlighted three markers of success under this outcome. These were:
HES’ most recent annual report covered 2023-24 and this noted that it had agreed to new organisational targets to reflect the decarbonisation of the electricity grid. HES reported that its CO2e emissions had increased by 1.4% compared to the previous year, but this remained within its targets.
HES provides guidance for owners of traditional buildings on how to save energy.
HES estimates that 18% of Scotland’s dwellings were constructed prior to 1919. Of these, 71% “are in a state of disrepair to critical elements” and 5% are classified as being below tolerable standard.
Under this outcome, HES indicated that markers of success could be evidence of adaptation and retrofit initiatives for traditional buildings across different sectors. In October 2024, HES announced plans to set up a centre “to champion the retrofit of traditional buildings to improve energy efficiency”. This will be supported with funding from UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Along with Skills Development Scotland, HES published an updated Skills Investment Plan for the Historic Environment in 2024.
There are skills gaps in the heritage sectors. Research that supported the SIP indicated that 68% of employers surveyed anticipate skills shortages in the medium term. Traditional skills, e.g. stonemasonry, is one of the areas where there are gaps and these skills are crucial in maintaining and improving traditional buildings. The sector also reported gaps in leadership and digital roles.
Apprenticeships and traineeships are likely to be important in increasing the supply of skilled labour in conservation and traditional building skills. In April 2025, HES and Scottish Canals announced a Centre of Excellence for Canals & Traditional Skills will be established to support “pathways into heritage skills training, volunteering, and employment within the historic environment sector”. HES has also recently collaborated with its English and Welsh counterparts to improve training on retrofitting traditional buildings.
Ned Sharratt
SPICe
Explore data by Scottish Parliament constituencies and regions through the Scottish Parliament constituency dashboard.
New: View the latest earnings data for Scotland in the new Earnings in Scotland dashboard.
View the latest labour market data for Scotland in the Labour market in Scotland dashboard.
Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.
Continue reading