Written by Emily Hopkins, Bernard Hay, Martin Charter and Trevor Davis
The creative industries face major sustainability challenges: from the high emissions of energy intensive processes like virtual production and live events, to the difficulties tracking emissions and accessing affordable renewable energy. Supply chain difficulties and the uneven adoption of circular economy practices also continue, with growing waste – particularly e-waste from digital tools – making it difficult to achieve a low-carbon sector.
On May 23rd, over 80 sustainability leaders, academics and policymakers gathered at the WWF Living Planet Centre in Woking – one of the UK’s most sustainable buildings – for Creative Industries 2025: The Road to Sustainability. Co-hosted by Creative PEC and the University for the Creative Arts’ Centre for Sustainable Design, the conference made space for creative industries experts to connect, share new learning and tackle common issues around sustainability across the sector.
Given this context, the conference set out to ask: how can the creative industries drive meaningful environmental sustainability?
Context of the Conference: Creative Industries and Climate
This conference built on the momentum of a closed workshop held by Creative PEC last summer, which brought together sustainability experts from across industry and academia to identify the key research questions needed to address evidence gaps around climate change and the creative industries. From this foundation, the conference delved deeper into discussions around current practice, ongoing barriers and future opportunities for sustainability across the creative subsectors.
It also sought to respond to key policy developments over the last year, with the creative industries recognised as one of the eight key growth sectors in the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy published in November 2024 and the subsequent publication of the DCMS Creative Industries Sector Plan in June. Achieving net zero, environmental sustainability and the circular economy are flagged as key issues across the documents.
In recent years we have seen the growth of sector wide efforts to coordinate on sustainability issues, including through bodies like the Creative Industries Council. However, policy action to address these issues remains fragmented, impacted further by creative subsectors often working in silos on sustainability initiatives and practice. By bringing key experts together, the conference sought to help inform a collaborative agenda to influence further policy action.
Setting the Scene for the Day
The conference opened with Professor Anastasios Maragiannis, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Creative Education at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA). He highlighted the passionate demand for change among creative graduates and the critical importance of embedding sustainability within creative education as a foundational way of thinking. With university degrees being the most likely entry route into creative jobs (see our research here and here), Higher Education Institutions play a crucial role in leading systemic change for the creative industries.
The keynote was delivered by Professor Martin Charter (Director of The Centre for Sustainable Design at UCA), highlighting the challenges of fragmentation across the creative industries, the lack of standards and the gap between ambition and capability in creative-led decarbonisation and circularity. He stressed the urgency for better data, smarter regulation and collective practice to address the “missing parts” of the sustainability puzzle.
Critically, the conference gave space for leaders from across the UK’s creative industries to explore strategies for aligning growth with environmental responsibility. Across five panels, key themes emerged around policy visibility, green skills, circular design, data-driven accountability, and behavioural change. The panels tackled some of the sector’s biggest challenges and opportunities on the road to sustainability.
Highlights from the Conference Sessions
A clear message was that the creative industries are still underrepresented in environmental policymaking. To change that, the sector needs to actively engage with a range of central government departments, push for a green skills agenda and work closely with regional leaders to drive place-based change in the context of increased devolution. On net zero, there was a strong call to move beyond buzzwords and start tracking real progress, moving “from vibes to KPIs”. Measuring Scope 3 emissions was recognised as a difficult process, but tools like BAFTA’s Albert showed how collaboration can make this more manageable.
The circular economy panel reiterated that good design is key to success, with early-stage planning, local production and the reuse of materials being successfully delivered in creative subsectors like theatre and fashion through the Theatre Green Book and the Circular Fashion Ecosystem Project led by the Institute for Positive Fashion. For example, a key opportunity identified was in better supporting, and scaling, infrastructure for the re-cycling and re-use of sets, costumes, and props, which can be used across creative sub-sectors like theatre, film and TV.
Existing action needs to scale for greater impact, with the need for shared systems, better education on sustainable materials and storytelling to shift public perception flagged as priorities. The CreaTech panel recognised the growing environmental footprint of digital creativity, as well as the role of technology in facilitating the tracking of materials. This was critical in relation to the reliance on data-heavy AI tools. There was discussion about how the sector needs to take control and set its own sustainability standards – perhaps with the British Standards Institution – before big tech corporations dominate.
Finally, behaviour change was recognised as a key opportunity for the creative industries, but this must be embedded rather than bolted on. That means building sustainability into job roles, using plain language and allowing experimentation, as well as sharing stories through creative practice to inspire and inform audiences. Each panel confirmed that meaningful progress across the creative industries will require systemic change which is rooted in collaborative action, clear metrics, inclusive leadership and a cultural shift for both creative practice and audiences.
The afternoon then opened into a series of World Café sessions to explore practical pathways to sustainability. Key themes included the need for place-based strategies tailored to the needs of local contexts, as well as stronger cross-sector collaboration to develop knowledge exchange and shared infrastructure. Common themes highlighted the power of storytelling to drive behaviour change in the sector and society, the urgency of upskilling for the creative workforce and the importance of accessible, scalable measurement tools. There was also a strong call for ethical governance in creative tech and greater sector leadership in shaping sustainability policy through active engagement with government and regulators.
Key Takeaways
As the creative industries continue to address the urgency of the climate crisis, The Road to Sustainability conference marked a further step toward collaborative knowledge exchange to shape a sustainable, biodiverse and circular future. We hope the transparent sharing of lessons learned and of case studies has helped to inspire future action, whilst being together at the WWF Centre opened the opportunity to form connections both across and within subsectors to tackle shared challenges.
Five implications for policymakers and those working in the sector emerged from the event:
- The creative industries should be positioned as key strategic partners in environmental policymaking, with more structured engagement with government. The Creative Industries Sector Plan’s commitment to develop a Net Zero Participation Strategy, provides a key opportunity to directly involve the sector in the design and implementation of this strategy. The sector’s unique ability to influence public behaviour and culture must be harnessed.
- More sustainability-focused networks and forums should be encouraged across the creative sector, to support the exchange of knowledge and practices. This would bring the creative subsectors together to learn, share and collaborate based on the issues underlined by the event. These networks would be beneficial for creative SMEs and microbusinesses to encourage collaboration, scalable action and build confidence around sustainable practices.
- Further development of shared sustainability standards, frameworks, definitions and infrastructure is needed – such as emissions tracking tools and materials reuse networks. This could help to bridge gaps across the creative subsectors and involve wider non-creative partners to enforce change.
- Joined-up policies addressing both net zero and circular economy practices within the creative industries are needed. The Centre for Sustainable Design at UCA have published on circular economy practices in the creative industries, and the ongoing Circular Economy Taskforce are producing a new Circular Economy Strategy for England by early 2026, which will help to connect these dots.
- Higher education institutions involved in creative education could accelerate the integration of the UN Sustainable Development Goals into teaching, research and operations to ensure that creative graduates are equipped with an understanding of sustainability early in their education.
The road to sustainability is complex, but with collective action across the subsectors, the creative industries can help to lead the way.
Image Credit: University for Creative Arts
