info@kingsplace.co.uk Tel 020 7520 1440

Environmental Sustainability

The Board and team of Kings Place are resolutely committed to minimising our impact on the environment and responding to the climate emergency. We aim to be a leader in the cultural sector for environmental practice and we actively promote environmental awareness to our audiences, artists, performers, collaborators and stakeholders. As an organisation and as individuals we are continually looking at how we can further reduce our carbon footprint, including energy consumption and the waste we produce.

Sustainability Policy

The current climate crisis is one of the most important issues that faces the world today and Kings Place is committed to reducing its impact on the environment wherever possible.


We have broken our commitments down into 4 key areas:

The Building
Kings Place is a multifunctional building featuring office space, public areas, a restaurant and performance spaces. Multiple businesses call Kings Place their home.

As a building we aim to be carbon net zero by 2050; work with our building management team to ensure our sustainability ambitions are met; review and support recycling in the building ensuring all occupants have access to the correct recycling points; regularly meet with all building tenants to discuss future goals and ideas.

Performances
We host a wide variety of performances, festivals and events across the year.

We will carefully consider branding and materials exploring sustainable options where possible: minimise energy use for our shows through careful management of air conditioning, lighting and equipment use; review artists we work with and their impacts through travel.

The Team
We have a large team of permanent and casual staff, from technical and production to marketing and our front of house team.

Creating and communicating clear environmental policy to our entire team, 
we operate a working group that meets regularly to discuss and implement new strategies to reduce our waste and carbon emissions; take environmental impact into account in all aspects of our decision making, when purchasing new equipment, booking shows and operating our venue.

Operations
Our operations include events, office space management and AV equipment hire.

Reducing waste and consumables in our operations and recycling and reselling where possible, we work with local sustainable suppliers and partners; seek to reduce the level of print in our marketing and event operations; monitor and review our impacts annually.

Sustainability Working Group 
The Sustainability Working Group is made up of representatives from all departments in the organisation and meets several times each year.

The aim of the working group is to ensure that the venue makes ethical and environmentally-sound decisions in all facets of the business and encourages others to follow the same processes. The group’s function is to co-ordinate and communicate various initiatives including the venue’s policy and commitments and the sustainability action plan.

Sustainability Action Plan 
Our action plan lists all completed, ongoing and scheduled actions the organisation has set relating to our environmental commitments. We will continue to review this document at every working group meeting to work towards achieving our ambitions and commitments.

Audit, Monitoring, Reporting and Review 
Environmental impacts will be assessed and audited annually by the Sustainability Working Group which will inform the review process for the policy and action plan. This includes energy consumption, paper waste, consumables and recycling.

Tenant Meetings 
Kings Place Music Foundation is a tenant of the Kings Place building. All tenants in the building regularly meet with the building management team, Savills, to discuss how they are progressing towards their own sustainability goals and how we can collaborate on our own commitments.

The building

We are fortunate to reside in a BREEAM certified building that was built with strong environmental principles at its heart.

  • Proximity to one of the largest public transport hubs in Europe, reducing the need for visitors and audiences to use cars
  • Secure bicycle parking for all staff
  • A displacement ventilation system which cools the building using outside air reducing usage of air conditioning
  • High standards of thermal insulation minimising heat loss through the fabric of the building
  • Efficient use of energy through good daylight penetration, motion activated lighting and an advanced transition programme to LED lighting throughout the building
  • Triple glass wall façade on the south and west aspects, dramatically reducing solar heat gain
  • Efficient use of water through low capacity cisterns, flow control in toilets and showers, leak detectors and harvesting of rainwater for irrigation
  • A ‘green’ roof with solar panels, and bio-ecology enhancing features including: a bug hotel, bird and bat boxes and plant boxes
  • The building is managed by Savills who have achieved ISO14001 accreditation for environmental building management
  • A zero to landfill waste management system with a recycling rate of over 75%
  • Kings Place uses energy from certified renewable sources

Recent achievements

We are very proud of our most recent achievements in sustainable practice. which include:

  • Converted all our lighting in our largest auditorium, Hall One, to LED lighting, reducing our energy consumption in the room by approximately 90%
  • Migrated many of our IT applications to cloud-based platforms reducing our reliance on high energy-consuming servers and server room air-conditioning units
  • Phased in tap-filled water bottles for artists and performers, to replace all single-use bottles
  • Replaced all one-use plastic cups used at the concert bar with re-usable cups
  • Policy of encouraging audience members to bring re-usable water and coffee cups when they attend performances through our pre-concert emails and on tickets
  • Introduced PIN activated copier and print machines to minimise paper and toner use
  • Phased out under-desk bins, encouraging all staff to make active decisions about how they manage their waste

We have made substantial progress towards reducing the carbon impact of Kings Place and becoming more sustainable. However, the scale of the crisis means we have to scrutinize, even further, every part of the way we operate and relentlessly strive for continual improvement.

Our mission is to continue to work towards alignment with the Paris Agreement and ultimately to achieve carbon neutrality in the shortest possible timeframe (an organisation achieves net zero carbon emissions by balancing carbon emissions with carbon removal and eliminating carbon altogether).