Creative Industries 2025 - The Centre for Sustainable Design

Creative Industries 2025
The Road to Sustainability in the UK Creative Industries

09:00–18:30 GMT
23rd May 2025
In person
Invite only

Introduction

This is a pivotal moment for the UK Creative Industries with the sector identified as a priority for growth by the government, updated Net Zero targets post-COP29 and establishment of a Circular Economy Task Force. Join The Centre for Sustainable Design® (CfSD) at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) and the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre for an invite only conference on The Road to Sustainability in the UK Creative Industries.

The aim of the conference is to bring together stakeholders in the UK Creative Industries to identify common sustainability challenges and opportunities for action in areas such as:

Net Zero	Circular Economy

Energy-Intensive Processes: High carbon emissions from activities such as virtual production, large-scale live events, and energy-intensive data centres used in streaming and post-production. Scope 3 Emissions: Difficulty in tracking and reducing indirect emissions (e.g., from suppliers, transportation, and materials sourcing) across complex supply chains. Transition to Renewable Energy: Limited access to affordable renewable energy solutions for smaller studios and creative enterprises, particularly in regions with less infrastructure.	Materials and Waste Management: Lack of systems to reuse, recycle, or upcycle materials, such as set designs, costumes, or props in film, theatre, and TV production. Slow adoption of new materials. Integration of Circular Design: Limited adoption of design principles that prioritise lifecycle management, particularly in material-intensive sectors like fashion and product design. Technology’s Environmental Impact: Challenges in implementing circularity for digital tools and content creation platforms (e.g., e-waste, sustainable software development or hardware reuse).

Background
Inclusion of the Creative Industries as a growth-driving Sector in the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy is an important step in encouraging investment, provision of infrastructure, and nurturing new skills.

The sector focus on sustainability is increasing with updated Net Zero targets post COP29 and the Government establishing a Circular Economy Taskforce to develop a new Circular Economy Strategy. However, to address climate change and damage to natural systems, issues such as the energy and water use for generative AI, e-waste from gaming and immersive entertainment, Scope 3 emissions from creative supply chains, and waste in fashion need to be addressed. Otherwise, Net Zero targets will not be met, and the benefits of the Circular Economy will not be delivered.

In the UK, Creative Industries policy remains fragmented, both across the sector as a whole and within its vertical sub-sectors, and there is currently uncertainty surrounding how Net Zero and Circular Economy for the sector will be integrated into policy.

Working in silos (film, fashion, music etc) can only take the Sector so far. Multiple sustainability issues affect all parts of the Creative Industries and their supply chains (e.g., approaches to decarbonisation and measuring Scope 3 emissions). There also needs to be a common language that allows for both coherence and sector-specific nuances in Creative Industries policy. Given that there are shared issues (and opportunities) across the sub-Sectors, there needs to be a forum where stakeholders in industry, government, NGOs, and academia can meet to identify these common challenges and look at options for action.

Objectives
The conference will bring all sub-sectors of the UK Creative Industries together for the first time to:

An honest and open discussion of the sustainability challenges and opportunities relevant to each sub-sector, and those that affect the entire Sector and its supply chains.
Discuss the role of sustainability and the Creative Industries in the government’s Industrial Strategy (“Invest 2035: The UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy”).
Discuss the role of emerging technologies and green skills in driving sustainable innovation.
Highlight case studies of successful sustainability initiatives across creative sub-sectors.
Connect stakeholders across industry, academia, NGOs, and government for knowledge exchange and partnership building.
Foster cross-sector collaboration to speed up progress on Net Zero and Circular Economy goals

Agenda

09:00 – Registration and refreshments

09:30 – Welcome and Introductions
Professor Martin Charter, Director, CfSD at UCA
Anastasios Maragiannis, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Creative Education, UCA

09:50 – Keynote Speech: The role of the Creative Industries in Invest 2035: The UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy
Speaker – TBC

10:05 – Panel 1: Delivering Sustainable Growth: Policy and Strategy Challenges for the Sector
Chair – Bernard Hay, Head of Policy, Creative PEC. Panellists – TBC

10:40 – Panel 2: Net Zero and Beyond in Creative Supply ChainsChair – Professor Lyndsay Duthie (Pro Vice Chancellor for Academic Partnerships and Industry Engagement, UCA). Panellists – Steve Smith (Director, Picture Zero and BAFTA Albert Ambassador), Luke Howell (Founder, Hope Solutions), Edward Houghton, (Director of Research and Insights, dg: cities), Dr Kamya Choudhary (India Policy Fellow, Grantham Research Institute, LSE)

11:15 – Morning break

11:40 – Panel 3: Building a Circular Economy in the Creative Industries
Chair – Patrick Schröder (Senior Research Fellow, Chatham House). Panellists – Professor Darshil Shah (Associate Professor in Construction and Materials, Centre for Natural Materials Innovation, University of Cambridge), Dr Nick Inoue (CEO, GroundWaves), Katy Downton (Senior Lecturer – Theatre Production, and Chair of the Theatre Green Book Education Committee, University of Surrey)

12:15 – Panel 4: Impact of Creative Technologies on Sustainability
Chair – Vicki Williams (Policy and Partnerships, CoSTAR Foresight Lab). Panellists include Dr Trevor Davis (Managing Director, Trevor Davis & Associates)

12:50 – Summary of the morning

13:00 – Lunch

14:00 – 16:10 World Café working sessions led by Emily Hopkins (Policy advisor, Creative PEC), Dr Katie Beverly (Senior Research Officer at Ecodesign Centre, Cardiff Metropolitan University), Laura Turner Laing (Managing Director, Creative UK), Dr Raquel Prado (Head of Research and Sustainability, Ananas Anam Ltd), Professor Peter Oakley, Director of the Sustainable Practices in the Anthropocene Research Lab, RCA), Paul Osbaldeston (Strategy and Policy Lead, Creative Wales – TBC), Dr Amer Alwarea (Director for Research & Innovation, UCA), Dr Pawas Bisht (Deputy Director, Keele Institute for Sustainable Futures; Senior Lecturer in Media, Keele University) and more to identify:

Shared medium to long-term sustainability goals
Pathways to the goals i.e. what preconditions must exist for the long-term outcome to be reached?
Where stakeholders across the Sector can make interventions to achieve the goals
How will we know that we are on track (“indicators”)?

16:40 – Panel 5: Making Change Happen
Chair – Professor Jonathan Sapsed (Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Newcastle University). Panellists include Mitch Turnbull (Bramble Media and Co-chair of the Innovate UK Immersive Technology Network’s Environmental Sustainability Working Group), Ellie Ashton (Sustainability Manager, Earth to Action), Roxy Erickson (Co-Founder, CreativeZero)

17:25 – 17:40 – Closing remarks followed by drinks and networking
Professor Martin Charter, Director, CfSD at UCA
Bernard Hay, Head of Policy, Creative PEC

18:30 – Close

Audience
This event is by invitation and will include a mix of stakeholders from the Creative Industries:

Policymakers working on Net Zero, Circular Economy, and green innovation policies.
Industry Leaders from creative sub-sectors (e.g., film, fashion, gaming) and their supply chains.
Academics and Researchers exploring sustainability, creative technologies, circularity, and decarbonisation.
NGOs and Advocacy Groups promoting sustainable practices in the creative industries.
Entrepreneurs and Start-Ups developing innovative tools, materials, and services aligned with sustainability goals.

Registration
This event is by invitation. Any queries please email rcarruthers@uca.ac.uk

Funding
Funding for this project is from the Research England Strategic Priorities Fund. Research England is part of UK Research and Innovation, a public body funded by the UK government. For more information visit www.ukri.org or re.ukri.org.

Further information
For more information contact:
Ros Carruthers
The Centre for Sustainable Design®
UCA
rcarruthers@uca.ac.uk
+44 (0) 1252 892772