The global arts and cultural sector shows a widespread lag in the transition to sustainability. Although efforts are already being made in many places, only few institutions have acted systematically. This is what the results of the first worldwide comparative study on sustainability in the cultural sector show.

Digitizing university teaching can improve sustainability, as the master’s program in cultural management at the University of Basel (SKM), Switzerland, discovered during the pandemic. Own observations and an eco-balance gave impulses to carry out the teaching offer in a more attractive and ecologically sustainable way and to reassess the previous processes.

To anchor sustainability in cultural management, it must be an integral part of the University program. That's why prospective technical directors at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences are taught, in teaching research projects, how mindfulness of resources and event management can be combined.

The cultural sector has so far been rather on the margins of the debates on CO2 emissions. But the reason is not that it does not contribute - because it does. And quite a few initiatives and projects worldwide are already successfully dedicated to climate-conscious and resource-saving arts and cultural management.