A Greener Gate
The Gate is always looking at ways to align more closely with sustainable practices that are conscious of our impact on our world as artists and taking steps to improve this. Learning and change is embedded into our processes. In this post, our admin assistant, Fisola shares the ways the Gate is becoming greener.
Our Updated Green Gate Policy
Our updated policy recognises the multivalence of the word ‘sustainability’ – this encompasses environmental sustainability, equality with a global approach to this. This has been crucial aspect of the way the Gate makes work and has been baked into the business plan since 2015. The Gate has a history of climate action and in 2025 is making a refreshed commitment to action and measure our efforts to operate sustainably using the Theatre Green Book model. We are currently at the preliminary level and in the coming years the goal is to move towards the basic level. For our organisation, this looks like transitioning to net zero, appointing members of the team to lead our “Green Committee,” implementing our action plan, measuring our methods and talking across our comms channels about the work we are doing.
The Gate is not limited by its size and has big ambitions to make green producing a default practice and industry standard at all scales of theatre. To read in detail our action plans head over to our website to read our Green Gate Policy.
Set and Costume After life: Gate’s Vinted store
Ever wondered what happens to set and costume after productions? After the creatives and teams have taken some memorabilia, a lot of set and costume is discarded. To make art in a more environmentally conscious way, The Gate has decided to give our set and costume a second life. The Gate has opened a brand new Vinted store where you can purchase set and costume from our productions. The beautiful costumes from our most recent production ‘Wish You Were Here’ by Sanaz Toossi are up on our Vinted store and can be found here.
Carbon Literary Training
Last year, The Gate took part in Carbon Literary training. This was a detailed session bringing awareness to our contribution to climate change, defining some of the language used in this field and bringing climate activism and change closer to theatre industry and our practices. I progressed on to get my accreditation. In the process, I was asked what my individual and organisational aims are. This was an opportunity to think about sustainability as a practice that doesn’t just exist at work or at home but is fluid. One of the biggest changes I have endeavoured to make is reevaluating who I bank with. This has been listed as one of the biggest impacts on our carbon footprint. https://makemymoneymatter.co.uk/ is a website that lets you check which bank and pension providers have more sustainable practices including what they invest our money in. At the Gate, my action is to include evaluating our practices on our weekly agenda. This will encompass our behaviours in the office and in the work we produce.
The onus of climate change lies with larger corporations and government. Our day-to-day practices signal to larger powers that we want to live a climate conscious life and we demand this change from the top down. Despite feelings of disillusionment, we must not forget how powerful we are as individuals and artistic people. From the stories we tell about the climate to the producing methods we implement- it all adds up. The greatest impact is the things we do consistently.
