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"Bayreuth Baroque" on the road to greater sustainability
30.04.2024
The international "Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival" attracts culture enthusiasts to the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth every year. Built in the 18th century, the opera house was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2012 and is known for its opulent interior and excellent acoustics. But behind the scenes, the "Bayreuth Baroque" team is also working on another highlight: sustainability. In 2023/2024, the festival team took part in the Corporate Sustainability Navigator Assessment of Bayern Innovativ GmbH (CSN) to find a clear path to a more sustainable future. Dr. Clemens Lukas, Managing Director of "Bayreuth Baroque", shares insights from the assessment and his vision for greater sustainability:
As "Bayreuth Baroque", you organize the Baroque Festival, which takes place every year in September in the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth, occasionally also at other locations. You recently completed the Corporate Sustainability Navigator Assessment of Bayern Innovativ GmbH. What was your motivation for taking the assessment? Did you have specific questions when you started the assessment?
Our motivation for taking the assessment was to find out where we stand and what steps we could take to become more sustainable. When we started the assessment, we didn't have any specific questions in mind, but simply wanted to get an overview of our situation and possible fields of action.
Was there an "aha" moment while completing the assessment? Did you come across something that you hadn't expected?
There was definitely an "aha" moment for us during the assessment. We were surprised by the number of criteria other than CO2 that can play a role. This made us think even more broadly about sustainability and include various aspects in our considerations that we perhaps hadn't paid so much attention to before.
Have you perhaps already implemented initial ideas based on the findings of the assessment?
The findings from the assessment have already inspired us to implement some ideas. We already had measures in the pipeline, and the assessment has shown us further possibilities that we now also want to tackle.
Were you surprised at how you performed compared to your benchmark group?
We weren't really surprised at how we performed compared to our benchmark group, as the number of comparable groups was still quite small. Nevertheless, the comparison has encouraged us to improve further and to intensify our efforts towards sustainability.
As a cultural institution, you have to deal with particular challenges and it is probably more difficult to implement "sustainable" measures, especially with a listed opera house. What can you recommend to other cultural institutions in terms of sustainability?
As a cultural institution with a listed opera house, we do indeed face particular challenges when it comes to implementing sustainable measures. However, cultural institutions, especially those run by the private sector, are used to making savings wherever possible anyway. In this respect, we recommend continuing to do so: For example, by avoiding unnecessary travel, promoting a paperless way of working, considering soft factors and using energy-efficient technologies such as LED stage lighting technology.
How do you integrate sustainability into your artistic and creative processes?
We integrate sustainability into our artistic and creative processes in various ways. For example, we use ensembles several times in a row to minimize transport routes, conduct rehearsals centrally and without interruption, use lean stage sets with a lot of effect, make more use of online meetings and collective transport and reward the use of rail travel. These measures not only help us to act more sustainably, but can also make artistic processes more efficient and save costs.
The assessment tools are licensed by the IMP³ROVE - European Innovation Management Academy. The assessments take place as part of the "Enterprise Europe Network" project, in which Bayern Innovativ GmbH is involved as a partner. Bayern Innovativ's Enterprise Europe Network team supports Bavarian SMEs and start-ups in their international orientation in order to drive forward new technological developments, find cooperation partners and be prepared for the future through successful innovation management. Charlotte Stegmayer and Florian Heilmayr from bayernkreativTEAM are also certified to carry out Corporate Sustainability Navigator assessments.