54 g-mast.org/c-change C-Change Arts & Culture Leading Climate Action Project Leader: City of Manchester Time Duration: 2017 – 2021 Countries Involved: Croatia, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, United Kingdom Keywords: Arts for Climate, Engagement Description C-Change is an Urbact transfer network of six European cities committed to developing collaborations within the arts and culture sector on climate action. It is led by Manchester (UK) with Wrocław (Poland), Šibenik (Croatia), Agueda (Portugal), Mantova (Italy), and Gelsenkirchen (Germany). These are cities with the arts, culture and creativity at their heart, including four UNESCO World Heritage sites, one UNESCO World Book Capital, two former European Capitals of Culture and one former national Capital of Culture, all already experiencing the impacts of climate change. C-Change’s main objective is to transfer the learnings and best practices of the Manchester Arts Sustainability Team (MAST) to support the network cities to mobilise their arts and culture sectors into climate change action. This is achieved through: developing local policies, governance, and capacity to act; developing plans to reduce CO2 emissions and/or adapt to climate change, and supporting their implementation; developing plans to use arts and culture to engage citizens to act and supporting their implementation; encouraging replication in other cities. Output The C-Change model is built on four key strands – collaboration, support, policy and engagement – which combine to frame and drive sector action. The collaboration path aims to create five new cultural groups that collaborate on climate, one in each partner city. These groups organise meetings, webinars, workshops, talks, concerts, events in theatres, libraries and orchestras and raise awareness on the topic. The support route foresees the capacity building and new skills training (eleven climate change training sessions across five cities; new digital training and learning tools for culture in Manchester). The support path also includes help in finding new funding opportunities for climate action and engagement. The engagement route envisages undertaking, for each city, a wide range of creative and inspiring engagement of arts and culture, and running a pilot action programme, providing micro-grants to selected actions (such as a chamber orchestra’s music workshops with children using recycled instruments in Mantova, a city library’s DIY urban wildlife campaign in Wrocław, a children’s theatre performance done in association with a local “plastic-free” campaign in Šibenik, etc.). From a policy point of view, the project helped develop integrated cultural strategies, helping underline the importance of taking action and commitment to the climate and the environment as a part of this strategy.
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