STAFF SUSTAINABILITY SURVEY REPORT
JULY 2024
Welcome!
This report summarises key findings from the Birmingham Hippodrome Staff Sustainability Survey, which ran for the first time between 12th29th July 2024.
The survey was conducted by Jess Taylor, the Sustainability Officer, with the objective of learning about how staff feel about sustainability, as well as how they understand the role of sustainability in the organisation’s work and where we can improve.
Questions covered personal beliefs about the environment, the organisation’s response and actions regarding sustainability, calculating the impact of staff travel on the environment, and ‘Open Answer’ opportunities for staff to offer their key opinions about our work.
The survey was distributed through several methods to gather a large, diverse sample. Via email to all staff with a Birmingham Hippodrome email account, Posted on the intranet, Forwarded to key staff with contact information for our flexi workers and volunteers.
49 69% 14/19 responses submitted departments represented 31% permanent staff flexible staff
Personal Sustainability
Birmingham Hippodrome staff’s feelings about the environment and their impact on it through travel.
Of staff said they “cared about the environment”
“I feel I understand enough about climate change and other climate-related science to inform my actions.”
High reported levels of concern combined with a significant portion of staff flagging lacking knowledge indicates that a knowledge gap prevents staff from joining sustainability initiatives. Concurrently, ‘Training’ is one of the top three areas where staff say we needed to improve our sustainability.
75.5% reported their sustainability choices were influenced by financial motivations and constraints.
Comments included: “Sustainability generally costs more. If it were the same cost I would always go with the most sustainable option.”
Staff Travel
Results highlights:
Public transport is incredibly important to staff and should be a focus for action.
Cycle and electric car use are relatively low considering we have a Cycle2Work and electric car salary sacrifice scheme
Many respondents suggested investigate a public transport discount for both staff and audiences, who both heavily use this system
The cost of travel to/from work was shown to impact decision making even when sustainability was a held value.
Organisational Sustainability
All respondents were neutral or positive about sustainability being good for a theatre’s brand and no respondent disagreed with the statement ‘Birmingham Hippodrome should talk more about sustainability and the environment’.
This indicates that staff would support initiatives to increase our communication regarding sustainability. This should therefore be considered a priority action.
Sustainability is a core value at Birmingham Hippodrome. Do you feel this is reflected in your area of work?
Very
Much To Some Extent Neutral
Given that ‘Sustainable’ is one of our five organisational values, a worryingly high percentage of staff think that sustainability is not present in their work. This indicates that we need to filter pro-environmental action throughout the theatre’s work and communicate clearly about how and why this is being done.
When staff feel empowered that they can have an impact on the climate crisis through their work, they will be more likely to engage with our initiatives.
“Birmingham Hippodrome has a strong commitment to sustainability and improving our environment.”
The lacking implementation of the Sustainable value has led a significant proportion of respondents to report that we do not currently have a strong commitment to improving our environment. Not only did 10.2% disagree that we have a strong commitment, but a notable 4.1% did not know at all.
It is also clear that the long-term, successful environmental initiatives aren’t being talked about enough – a staggering 73% of respondents are unaware of our ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems certification, despite us holding it since 2010! This result also indicates that it is important for us to pay attention to new theatre sustainability frameworks and initiatives as they arise. Despite being relatively new, an impressive 43% of respondents are aware of Theatre Green Book, and we should seize on this awareness to take action.
73% not heard of ISO14001 43% heard of Theatre Green Book
Top Areas to Improve Top Achievements
Building and facilities
Waste Skills and Training
Also popular: Procurement; Commissioned or Produced Work; and Transport. Several staff also wrote in ‘Technical’.
Reusable cups*
Forums like Green Team
Recycling campaign
*Though we need to improve communication with audiences as too many are being stolen.
In Summary
This survey will be a vital benchmark for sustainability efforts at Birmingham Hippodrome going forward. It has provided a unique opportunity for the thoughts of staff to be shared directly.
Many practical, well thought out opportunities have been raised, from “It would be great for us to have some quantifiable targets moving forwards” to "the Patrick Studio lighting rig need to be more energy efficient, LED lighting would half our energy consumption”.
Key limitations have also been highlighted – the “time/resource/expert knowledge to make this happen” needs to be secured, and when it comes to sustainability, “the cost of living crisis is real”.
Staff have been honest about where we are not meeting expectations – in what we’re doing (“Yet to see any proof or evidence to show its a priority”) and how we’re communicating (“it [sustainability] should be more visible…to BH”).
Regular feedback loops like this will be important to making Birmingham Hippodrome’s sustainability journey equitable and people-led, creating the buy-in we need to make transformative changes.
Currently, 42.8% of staff feel that Birmingham Hippodrome’s Sustainable value is not reflected in their work. Let’s change that.
Staff Suggestions
Respondents were given opportunities to suggest what they think would make a difference to sustainability at Birmingham Hippodrome. Here are their ideas:
Promoting social sustainability and savings costs through drawing on onsite expertise rather than sourcing outside
Lowering staff transport emissions by considering if more staff can work flexibly
Updating lighting in the Patrick Studio and Main Stage to all LED to lower energy costs
Investigating a public transport discount we could offer to audiences
Improving the square so there is less litter and potentially some green space
Reducing unnecessary energy use in the building, for example by investing in sub-grids to isolate power to occupied areas only
Communicating what we’re doing already
Better signs for recycling and reusable cup return
Not ordering sweets and merchandise for Panto/Ballets from China and working with more local vendors instead
Trying to improve arts access equity – for example through targeted ticket discounts
Improving insulation and the building envelope
Replace unrecyclable single-use coffee and sweets cups
Offering digital programmes to reduce print waste
Use less paper across the building
Support for policies about anti-social behaviour during shows
Actively promote gender equality (and tackle other inequalities) and work towards closing the gender pay gap
Being flexible with our produced work to allow for more sustainability measures