Environmental Policy

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust is committed to working towards being “ambitious, innovative, collaborative, outward facing, excellent and responsible” in everything we do.

Our ambition is to work in as sustainable a way as possible, to minimise our environmental impact, to seek to be net zero in our own emissions, and to become an exemplar of environmentally sustainable operation within the heritage sector.

To this end we commit to:

Communicating and Collaborating

We will:

• Celebrate and explore Shakespeare’s connection to the natural world as a way of embedding environmental issues at the heart of what we do.
• Create and adhere to an Environmental Action Plan.
• Be fully transparent and communicate the outcomes of our Environmental Policy and Action Plan to all of our stakeholders.
• Involve our staff and volunteers and encourage them to help in reducing the Trust’s environmental footprint.
• Engage with local environmental and ecological groups to explore ways we can support and develop each other’s work.

Encouraging Biodiversity

We will:

• Continue to take steps to encourage biodiversity across all our sites.
• Survey the biodiversity on our sites to monitor the impact of our actions.
• Deliver beyond the government’s 10% proposed ‘biodiversity net gain’ in all of our new building projects.

Becoming Sustainable

We will:

• Roll out Museum specific Carbon Literacy training through the organisation.
• Comply with all legal requirements and environmental legislation in everything we do.
• Reduce, reuse, repair and recycle as a priority.
• Seek to make operational efficiencies wherever possible.
• Investigate new sources of energy and harvest energy and water where possible using sustainable methods e.g. water harvesting.
• Reduce our levels of waste and pollutants.
• Convert our Halogen lighting to a more energy efficient source.
• Source equipment and products locally if possible e.g. amenities, catering, cleaning and janitorial supplies, garden planting, livestock, printing materials, retail products and stationery.
• Use environmentally friendly products from sustainable sources in all areas of our business, where possible.
• Encourage staff and volunteers to thoroughly consider travel methods when travelling on Trust business, and be as environmentally friendly as possible.
• Encourage our audiences and visitors to be respectful of our environment and provide systems of recycling wherever possible.
• Work innovatively and collaboratively to find ways to reduce the environmental impact of visitor travel to our sites, exploring local mitigations, working with partners to influence the transport infrastructure and implementing a green travel plan for our visitors.

Measuring our Impact

We will:

• Baseline our current use of energy, water and non-renewables. Set targets to reduce usage and improve efficiency.
• Ensure our five year Action Plan is reviewed annually by our board of Trustees.
• Use Julie’s Bicycle monitoring and reporting tools to measure our own environmental sustainability performance benchmarked against peer organisations.
• Join the Green Tourism Award to evidence our Environmental work and ultimately aim to be Gold award holders.

Building Resilience

We will:

• Take steps to prepare for and respond to the impact of climate change on our properties, collections, stakeholders, infrastructure and visitor experience.

The Environmental Policy will become an integral part of the Trust’s operations and will be adhered to by all our staff and volunteers, and we will communicate our expectations to suppliers, contractors and other stakeholders.

For further information or queries please contact our team at [email protected].

Last updated: September 2025