Sustainability

Here at Hear My Music, we recognise that our world is in a climate crisis, and that it is our responsibility to find new ways of working that can reduce our impact on the planet and reduce our carbon emissions.

We are committed to monitoring, managing and minimising our environmental impact and continually improving our environmental practices.

HMM is delighted to be a member of Culture for Climate Scotland’s Green Arts Initiative, a growing networked community of 300+ cultural organisations committed to developing a greener arts sector throughout Scotland. We have an appointed green champion, our administrator, Noanie Heffron.

Our Environmental Commitments

To reduce our carbon impact and embed sustainable practices within Hear My Music.
To integrate and promote the consideration of environmental concerns and impacts into our decision making and activities across the organisation and to our stakeholders.
To minimise waste by reduction, reuse, and recycling methods.
To provide appropriate guidance, support and resources to staff, freelancers, and participants to meet our commitments.
To communicate our environmental and sustainability commitments and practices to all our stakeholders, and encourage their support and participation.
Encourage advocacy and awareness of climate change through song writing/expression, taking into account the unique/individual communication methods of our participants.
To review, evaluate, and continually strive to improve our sustainability.
To strive towards City of Glasgow’s net-zero target by 2030.
To meet Scottish Government’s net-zero target by 2045.

Making it Happen

Travel

We minimise unnecessary staff travel through flexible working for office staff, utilisation of online resources and video conferencing where possible, and promoting and supporting sustainable/ active travel for practitioners.

Operations/Reducing environmental impact

We use non-disposable resources as far as possible for all events and sessions.
We aim to be as paper-free as is practical : all our office communications, staff and pracitioner resources are stored online. Printing is kept to an absolute minimum. We also monitor the carbon footprint of cloud-based products. Communication with participants and families is made using email or phone, and any forms, invoices or contracts are sent electronically, unless absolutely necessary.
We are continually expanding the availability of our online music sessions to increase the geographic range where we provide access to music without also increasing the travel footprint.

Resources/Reducing waste

We strive to reduce waste by only purchasing necessary items, and repairing, repurposing or recycling used items.
We service our own instruments and equipment and repair damaged/broken items in-house.
We ensure that any new electronic equipment purchases are as energy efficient as possible.
We work with suppliers that can evidence their own environmental policies and purchase products that do the least damage to the environment.
We encourage our suppliers to support HMM’s environmental aims.
We use recycling facilities at locations we work in.

Shared Learning

All permanent staff members, freelance practitioners and board members will be Carbon Literacy trained by our Green Champion to support them to feel confident in tackling the climate crisis.
We will collaborate and share learning with other organisations to reduce carbon impact.
We will share learning with all stakeholders via regular communications.
We will embrace new models of working to reduce carbon impact.
We will spread the message of the importance of more sustainable and environmentally friendly working through creative output on our website and social media.

Evaluation

We will evaluate and formally track our progress annually, to reflect any ongoing changes of national or international policy.