About

Ecostage is a grassroots, vounteer-run initiative and website that provides a framework, tools and resources for embedding practice-based ecological thinking at all stages of our creative processes and scales of production.

It launched at COP26 and has been involved in international conversations, including hosting a workshop at World Stage Design and developing the Global Voices video archive. Ecostage had a key role in Ecoscenography Day at Prague Quadrennial 2023 (the international theatre design festival), where its directors hosted a panel. They also ran a workshop as part of the UK exhibition programme, Hello Stranger.

The Ecostage core team are individually and collectively involved in exploring and promoting sustainable practices. They offer online and in-person workshops, talks and consultancies.

Ecostage is part of a broader movement towards social and environmental justice in the performing arts sector that recognises accountability for the Global North’s impact on the climate crisis.

Overview

Ecostage is a catalyst for individual and collective change. It aims to be responsive, engaging and relevant in its advocacy and activism, remaining alive to feedback, change and growth. At its heart are The Seven Ecostage Principles, designed to bring together creativity, sustainability, Nature connection, well-being and social activism.

The website also includes inspirational case studies, resources, a glossary and a reading list, as well as hosting an industry-wide network of practitioners.

Wherever you are in your eco-journey, Ecostage provides a framework that offers multiple routes to change-making and different ways to engage, get involved and support your eco-journey.

Whether or not we are making work with an environmental or social focus, our creative practices are situated in the rapidly transforming age of the Anthropocene, and the stories we tell are part of an overarching ecological narrative. Ecostage stands for a paradigm shift promoting a holistic approach to creating work.

The initiative draws on, amongst other things, ecology, models of sustainability, well-being practices, imagination, traditional and local knowledge, permaculture, ecoscenography and social activism.

Ecostage aims to embed ecological thinking at the heart of creative practice, inspire and deliver change, and foster ecological regeneration by:

• Cultivating a holistic approach to making and sharing work that recognises the interconnectivity between creativity, ecology, and well-being.
• Empowering people to engage with advocacy and activism, celebrating the small steps and longer leaps, whilst holding the bigger vision.
• Building the Ecostagers Community to foster mutual support, collective activism and creative collaboration.
• Facilitating a place for exchange and shared learning through resources, case studies and workshops.
• Supporting practical application of the Seven Ecostage Principles as a framework for project planning from start to legacy.
• Promoting the power of the Ecostage Pledge to generate collective momentum.
• Challenging current measures of success to include the way in which work is created, such as fair pay, calculating our carbon footprint and incorporating the ‘cradle to cradle’ model.
• Celebrating the aesthetic range and diversity of sustainably-produced work.

Ecostage acknowledges the lack of diversity in our industry, the effects of structural discrimination and the complexities around issues of culture, race and identity. We commit to being actively anti-racist within our organisation, to being proactively inclusive and to diversifying our networks. We will work towards facilitating awareness of the intersectionality of social, climate and environmental justice and decolonising the arts.