Sustainability

Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm is connected to various networks that promote dialogue on sustainability in the cultural sector in order to share knowledge, improve structures and lend greater impact to the urgency of concerns and activities at a regional and a national level. This also includes more efficient and sustainable travel and tour planning for business trips by employees and visiting artists as well as examining possibilities of and eligibility for compensatory measures. As part of the Sustainability Working Group of the Alliance of International Production Houses, we have helped to develop a joint travel policy that sets out guidelines for all trips arranged by Künstler*innenhaus, ensuring that trips are coordinated, organised, carried out and invoiced in a sustainable, efficient and economical manner. 

The seven international production houses in the Alliance are places of international cooperation where artists from many parts of the world meet and present work to audiences. We consider it our social task and obligation to make these institutions sustainable for everyone – regardless of origin, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, disability, religion, culture, residence status, age, class, appearance or other identities and attributions. The programmes of the production houses require regular travel. We are committed to encouraging our employees, our cooperation partners, artistic, technical and administrative production teams to always contribute to a culture of resource conservation. For more on the travel policy (link leads to the BIP page in Engiisch)

In 2021, Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm took part in the German Federal Cultural Foundation's climate footprint pilot project for cultural institutions. Alongside 18 other nationally active cultural institutions from various disciplines, Mousonturm calculated its own carbon footprint for 2019. A continuation of the carbon footprint assessment is planned with an expansion in Scope 3 to include the capture the aspect of visitor mobility.

Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm is a member of the ÖKOPROFIT-Klub (Ecoprofit Club) Frankfurt since 2018. Environmental protection with profit is the goal of the corporate environmental consulting programme ÖKOPROFIT® (ECOlogical PROject For Integrated Environmental Technology). The project significantly contributes to an environmentally friendly and sustainable development of the city of Frankfurt am Main. ÖKOPROFIT® is based on the voluntary and personal initiatives of its participants and promotes firmly establishing the shared objective of sustainability with the three focal points of ecology, economy and social issues.

• As part of the ÖKOPROFIT initiative, we have identified measures to reduce consumption and improve energy management. We continuously monitor and optimise our energy consumption (heating, cooling, electricity, water). We have reduced our lighting throughout the building and converted to LED, installed motion detectors in frequently used rooms and improved our waste separation, particularly for paper and packaging. 
• We are constantly endeavouring to reduce our paper consumption. We have set duplex printing as standard in our office copy machines and use 100 per cent recycled paper with the Blue Angel certificate. We are also continuously adjusting the print runs of our print media and we print our monthly programmes in a climate-neutral way on 100% Blue Angel-certified waste paper at a local print shop. In order to save paper, we have replaced the printed event flyers with cast lists, which are clearly displayed in the foyer during events. All information about the respective event can be accessed digitally via a QR code. Tickets purchased online can be shown digitally on a smartphone. If you receive printed material from us and do not need it, please send an email to info [at] mousonturm.de.
• We avoid the production of merchandising products wherever possible, upcycle print media for giveaways and pay attention to sustainable and fair production conditions for items such as our team T-shirts.
• To avoid the use of plastic bottles, there is a drinking water tap in our tea kitchen for the team, visitors and artists.
• The Mousonturm-Lokal restaurant only serves vegetarian and vegan meals. 
• We have drawn up guidelines for the reuse of materials and regularly review our inventory and storage capacities in the stage design department. We use recycled hardware, co-operate with regional partners to lend technology and materials and support local initiatives to develop material storehouses.
• Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm and its venues are easy to reach by public transport, and we draw attention to this possibility in our media. We have converted two car parking spaces in front of the building into bicycle parking spaces with bicycle frames and offer additional parking spaces for bicycles in the courtyard. Where possible, we use bicycle couriers for transport within the city. The company car has been converted to electric.

Our team is constantly undergoing further training in workshops on sustainability topics – for example on CO2 compensation, circular economy of materials, sustainable production and touring or in the area of technology – and regularly bring what they have learned into cross-departmental team meetings. Signs about saving electricity and water have been put up in various spaces in the building. A mandatory energy awareness workshop is planned for all employees.