Abstract:
Theatres can spread awareness on sustainability issues and should become sustainable themselves. Increasing transparency of environmental policy can help achieve this. This research’ aim is learning more about transparency of environmental policies of British and Dutch theatres, seeing whether sustainability ambitions expressed in their public statements, are compatible with accomplishments, and seeing what may cause differences. Regarding environmental performance, British cultural organisations are a step ahead of Dutch ones. This makes it interesting to see how and why they differ regarding transparency: ‘How does transparency regarding sustainability ambitions and actual accomplishments differ between British and Dutch theatres and what may cause these differences?’.
A policy analysis is executed: environmental policy in public statements of British and Dutch theatres is analysed, focusing on framing of sustainability ambitions and accomplishments. These aspects are compared and transparency is measured using Piechocki’s (2004) Transparency Score Card. Expert interviews are conducted for background knowledge. Concluded is that British and Dutch theatres working on sustainability are quite transparent, but that British theatres have higher transparency values. However, differences are small. This could be caused by differences regarding urgency assigned to the issue, funding requirements of cultural organisations, ownership of theatre buildings, and successfulness of CSR.
