Creative hubs with their spirit of creativity and enterprise, the facilities they host and the variety of events they produce, can serve as a microcosm for circular economy innovation and experimentation of advanced green solutions in their management models and in the event’s production, in order to promote sustainable development, boost global competitiveness and generate new jobs.
As a large cultural hub, DumBO has a big “green potential” that can be developed. With DumBO Green District a challenging goal has been set: the project intends to develop and implement an exemplary roadmap towards sustainability, that can be easily replicated without major investments because it relies essentially on resources and staff internal to the hubs.
Within DGD, the development of the sustainability strategy involves both internal and external audiences. Informing and engaging the community members of the “DumBO district” is crucial to effectively implement the strategy and manage the changes it implies. But the project also intends to raise awareness among stakeholders, venues managers, suppliers, musicians, music industry managers and those who, as spectators of events or frequenters of cultural centres, are interested in understanding and exploring issues related to the environmental sustainability within the cultural ecosystem.
A particular attention will be given to the definition of roles, tasks and skills of the Sustainability Manager, in charge of designing ad hoc sustainable events, setting objectives and strategic practices aimed at implementing sustainability and reducing the environmental impact of events.
To reach the project objective of inspiring behaviour change within other cultural managers, music venues and visitors to adopt more circular practices, DGD will take measurement of the present situation, identifying barriers and innovative solutions.
The pool of collected data will be incorporated into a multilingual digital toolkit with event organization self-assessment tools, best-practice guide and trainers’ handbook for music event businesses. The toolkit will provide guidance for building-based organizations on how to integrate sustainability-related goals and strategies.
As cultural hubs are frequented by many people, they can have a wide impact and influence on visitors’ behaviour and motivating them to adopt more circular practices at home. In this sense, the project intends also to foster ecological awareness within the audiences, promoting the importance of the role of cultural hubs in raising awareness about environmental issues.
Up-cycling and reusing reduce the need of raw materials positively affecting the budget. It is a potential opportunity to save money while reducing consumption and waste.
The project starts with a series of meetings with cultural and environmental sector stakeholders, policy makers and institutional representatives conceived as moments of exchange and training and will be preparatory to the development of DumBO’s green strategy, which will see its complete implementation in Summer 2023.
The theoretical part is accompanied by practical moments, with self-construction workshops for furnishings and equipment, based on the reuse of materials and sets, managed by entities belonging to the “DumBO District”.
Throughout the year 2023, pilot activities will be implemented to test the green strategy, in collaboration with the DumBO community and through conferences and practical workshops opened to the general public.
DumBO Green District is funded by the MusicAIRE (An Innovative Recovery for Europe) project, co-funded by the European Union and the European Union’s Music Moves Europe Preparatory Action.
