Organisation: Julie's Bicycle 

Your name: Catherine Bottrill

Location: UK

Website: www.juliesbicycle.com (and we are on facebook and twitter)

Short summary:
Julie's Bicycle is a non-profit company working to catalyse and
support the creative industries to address its environmental impacts.
We presently work with music, theatre and visual arts. We work to
develop joint responses to climate change. Our approach is to study
the issue and devise solutions with the creative community that are
right for the creative industries. We have developed the Industry
Green certification scheme for venues, festivals, CD packaging and
offices as well as the free online IG tools for measuring the
greenhouse gas emissions from venues, festivals, touring and offices.
Our operations are UK, but much of what we do will translate to creative
industries in other countries.

What’s your history in the industry?
I am an energy and climate change researcher. I first got involved
with Julie's Bicycle when I was with Oxford University's Environmental
Change Institute - we had been asked to scope the total greenhouse gas
emissions of the UK music market. This study was the First Step
report, which helped lay the foundations for the work of Julie's
Bicycle. I had got the bug - and have continued developing and
undertaking research for Julie's Bicycle on CD packaging, audience
travel and festivals. It has been incredibly rewarding to be working
with a sector that is getting to the heart of the matter and
developing real solutions that will reduce emissions.

Was finding start up capital difficult?
Julie's Bicycle is a small organisation with the clear ambition of
creating a low carbon creative economy. Funding initially came from
establishing a leadership group made up of key people from across the
UK music industry as well as securing some small grants. This funding
was enough to get get the ball rolling. This year we launched our
Julie's Bicycle Associates programme for creative companies and also
receive grants from public funding bodies.

Why should we green the music industry?
If we are going to crack climate change and create a prosperering society
it needs to be done together. Music has the power to raise
environmental consciousness and give voice to a positive vision for
the future. Its influence will be best accessed if artists are
supported by an infrastructure in which environmental sustainability
is embedded throughout its business practices.

What’s our biggest challenge in greening the music industry?
When people are busy and under pressure it is not easy to see the
importance of greening the music industry, especially when there are
seemingly bigger polluters to worry about. Embedding environmental
sustainability into business practices necessitates doing things
differently and doing things differently takes willingness and effort
of artists, managers, agents, record labels and promoters etc. Doing
the right thing for the environment has to presented simply and the
benefits apparent - then people are more than happy to be involved.

What can we do as artists?
Commit to the climate change issue; understand the issue as it relates
to your work; measure your environmental impacts (because when you
know your impacts you can start to make informed decisions about how
to reduce those impacts); develop an action plan to reduce your
impacts (a great way to track progress); and communicate to others
what you are doing and why you are taking action. Practical things you
can do include: talking about the issue with your team and suppliers,
giving responsibility to your team to take action, using a green rider
with venues and festivals (ask us for our template), asking venues you
are performing what they are doing on the environment (ask us for our
template), use card CD packaging, measuring the greenhouse gas
emissions when touring with the IG tour tool (freely available from
our website) and talk with your fans about the issues (get the
conversation going with them). And enjoy the process of learning how
to make a positive impact - it is fun getting involved!

What’s the most important step we can take to green the music industry?
Lead by example. Doing is inspiring.

What other activities are you involved in?
Currently I am in the last year of my PhD at Surrey University, which
is examining the opportunities and challenges for the UK music
industry to respond to climate change. I am looking at artist,
business and audience perceptions of what the music industry can do to
address climate change.

How many hours per week do you spend on JB?
It varies depending on what is going on - full-time if I am doing a
piece of research otherwise 1-2 days a week.

What are your future goals?
Continuing to actively contribute towards the efforts to green the
creative industries by continuing to pull together more knowledge
needed to help the industries prioritise actions and to work together
on creating solutions.