SUSTAINABILITY

Future Yard was established to reimagine the role of a live music venue, to find new ways of bringing about profound social and cultural change in Birkenhead, utilising the power of music to bring about these changes. Through our training programmes, artist development work, community activities and inclusive programming, we’ve started along this road. But, if we are to achieve true change, we must tackle the great challenge of our times: the climate emergency.

Our venue is run by Future Yard CIC (Community Interest Company) – a non-profit focused on delivering Future Yard’s vision. We operate on a ‘triple bottom line’, judging success across our social and environmental impact, as well as financial. At the outset, we committed to embracing the challenge of operating as sustainably as possible and set the long-term goal of becoming the first carbon-neutral grassroots music venue in the region and one of the first in the UK.

Since this initial statement, we have made major steps in reducing our carbon footprint through a number of methods. We have also revised our original position on achieving carbon-neutral status, largely down to the widespread use of carbon offsetting credits. We have now set a new aim, which we feel to be more realistic and valuable to society: we aim to become operational net zero by 2030, which would makes us one of the first arts organisations in the UK to achieve this. Please read our Sustainability Roadmap below about how we plan to achieve this.

We have been working in partnership with Liverpool John Moores University’s Low Carbon Eco-Innovatory to shape the long-term design of our building, understand our energy consumption and develop a range of policies to ensure we operate as sustainably as possible.

The live music industry has an acute sustainability problem. We are committed to ensuring that we create a place that has a net positive environmental impact, one that fundamentally takes carbon out of the atmosphere and plastic out of our oceans, not one that adds to the problem.

This roadmap sets the course for our sustainability journey. Each year we will track our progress against it and seek to improve as we go.

The future is (a green) Birkenhead.

SUSTAINABILITY ROADMAP

As part of our journey towards being a net zero operation, we have decided to update our community on our achievements in the hope that we can inspire more of our attendees and peers in the music/events industry to join us.

In November 2024, we published the second, updated edition of our Sustainability Roadmap, which was launched as part of our POP29 climate symposium debating action in DIY music and events. This Sustainability Roadmap lays out our plan to limit our impact on the environment and ultimately become operational net zero by 2030, and fully net zero by 2035.

We are committed to ensuring that we create a place that has a net positive environmental impact. This roadmap sets the course for that sustainability journey. Each year we will track our progress against it and seek to improve as we go.

Download and read: FUTURE YARD SUSTAINABILITY ROADMAP 2024 (PDF)

Download and read the first edition, published in 2022: FUTURE YARD SUSTAINABILITY ROADMAP 2022 (PDF)