The visual arts is not alone in its efforts to fight the climate crisis. Other sectors across the world - from film and TV to museums and fashion - are all tackling similar challenges, addressing their own impacts, and communicating to their audiences.

GCC spoke to Sara Kassam, Sustainability Advisor at UK Sport and former Sustainability Lead at the V&A, to discuss what the two of the world’s most influential sectors - sport and art - have in common, and what they might be able to earn from each other.

With experience in sustainability in both sports and the visual arts, Kassam thinks that the cultural sectors occupy a unique role when it comes to addressing the climate crisis.

When it comes to issues such as travel, energy, and waste, both sectors face similar challenges.

“Both sectors move people and things – so travel and transport is massive, whether it’s museum objects or sporting equipment, or athletes going to competitions or people going to exhibitions,” Kassam says.

Similarly, both arts and sports are vast sectors that are made up of a mixture of public institutions, private organisations, and individuals.

“There can be a disconnect between different bits of the sector - so grassroots might be doing something over here, the private sport world something over there, and the same for the private art world and publicly-funded arts institutions,” she says. “Each might be doing slightly different things at slightly different stages.”

A common challenge for professionals in the arts and culture sectors can be finding accurate information, having access to resources, and knowing where to begin.

“People are really keen, across both sectors,” Kassam says. “People are very enthusiastic and very motivated, but maybe feel lacking in confidence or knowledge or expertise - really wanting to do something but not knowing where to direct their time or effort.”

Meanwhile, Kassam says, each sector can build on its unique strengths - and the commitment of their audiences - to implement genuine change.

In sport, for example, clubs and organisations can draw on innate team loyalty and competitiveness to educate fans about the climate, encourage behaviour change, and communicate their own decarbonisation. Green Football Weekend is one example of this.

“In sport you have that slight competitive element that helps sometimes - people are kind of like, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that, and it keeps pushing things along a little bit more,” Kassam says. “Sport can tap into the tribalism of fandom, whereas maybe in the art world, in terms of engaging their audiences, they’re doing it in slightly different ways.”

While collaborating, communicating, and coming together within each sector is critical, collaboration between sectors could also help solve common problems.

“Nobody is special - each sector thinks it’s special, and it’s really not,” Kassam says. “We absolutely need to look up and out and learn from others.”

One example might be the opportunity to compare solutions to reducing waste and implementing circularity.

“Museums buy uniforms, and sports buy kit - it’s different rules, but there are still similarities,” Kassam explains. “For example, we commissioned a piece of research  around the life cycle of apparel with a four NGBs [National Governing Bodies] and four other sporting organisations.It would be really interesting [to talk to] museums or galleries that have uniform that are thinking about the life cycle analysis what they’re buying.”

Kassam has experience working between institutions and sectors to solve these kinds of problems.

“When I was working with colleagues in a retail function in a museum I ended up talking to an aquarium [about] and what they’d been willing to accept in terms of ethics for their products, and that was really transferable and really useful,” Kassam says. “I think it’s [about] understanding what your problem is and what you're trying to do, and then being able to look out and think - right, who else is doing something that I could learn from?”

Most importantly, the arts and culture sectors have a vast reach and a unique potential to influence and engage audiences. Whether we’re engaging within the arts, connecting beyond, or both, what’s vital is making sure that we’re communicating what we’re doing.

“The reach is massive - we have that real human connection, art really resonates with people on a very emotional level, as does sport,” Kassam says. “That's the commonality - they have that human connection, that emotional resonance, and that’s something to draw on and make the most of.”

With years of experience in the field, Kassam is optimistic that there is a genuine drive for change in both the visual arts and sport. 

“I think you get pockets of braveness across both sectors,” says Kassam. “There are people just being brave and cracking on and doing stuff - which is wonderful.”

Find out more about UK Sport’s sustainability work: https://stories.uksport.gov.uk/environmental-sustainability-strategy/