As scrutiny of the art world's carbon footprint increases, the Gallery Climate Coalition has announced today that it is expanding to Germany with a new Berlin chapter.
The non-profit, London-born green initiative was launched last year by a group including Frieze co-founder Matthew Slotover, Frieze director Victoria Siddall, gallerists Thomas Dane, Sadie Coles, Kate MacGarry and the Lisson director Greg Hilty, and The Art Newspaper's own diarist, Louisa Buck. It was born, says Dane, "out of a frustration that it wasn’t easy to get information and guidelines as to how you could run a small business effectively as well as being environmentally responsible.” The group's aim is to reduce their carbon footprint by at least 50% over the next decade.
The sub-group of Berlin galleries will offer information and resources on sustainability to Germany-based art organisations and professionals. "Our core goal remains a commitment to the Paris agreement: that is, to meet the necessary reductions in carbon emissions to mitigate the impacts of climate change," a GCC statement says. "This means collectively finding sustainable solutions for the art industry to achieve a 50% reduction in carbon emissions across the industry by 2030."
The founding GCC Berlin team includes: Jennifer Chert (ChertLüdde Gallery), Lucile Bouvard, Helen Turner (E-WERK Luckenwalde), Anne Schwanz (OFFICE IMPART), Carolin Leistenschneider (Haverkampf Gallery), Emiliano Pistacchi (Esther Schipper Gallery), Franziska von Hasselbach and Sven Below (Sprüth Magers Gallery), Kim Kraczon (Studio Olafur Eliasson / Ki Culture), Viola Eickmeier (Studio Violet) and Jan Dietrich.
All will have access to the GCC carbon calculator, which measures a gallery's carbon footprint and was developed with GCC founding members Artlogic, and a new "geographically specific section" of the GCC website, sharing knowledge on eco-friendly suppliers such as energy providers and art storage.
This is not all for the GCC—further branches are in the works for Los Angeles and New York.