Sustainable Fun Palaces

Fun Palaces are all about making the most of what we have to hand and creating something incredible right where we are.

The majority of people are now thinking about sustainability and what they can do as individuals and groups to start tackling climate change. It can sometimes feel quite overwhelming, but the good news is that there are loads of small shifts and adjustments you can make to your Fun Palace to make it more sustainable. And by sharing your sustainability practices with others, you may well find you encourage them to do the same. It is through sharing and talking about these things that the word spreads, and what may feel like just one or two people making changes at the start, could lead to tens, hundreds – entire communities giving more thought to sustainability.

Fun Palaces themselves already have some sustainable ideas behind them. For instance, by their very nature they are local; local communities celebrating the culture that already exists within them, without having to travel to the nearest big town or city for that culture. By reducing travel to events and making your Fun Palace sustainable, you reduce your carbon footprint.

How this toolkit works:

This is a toolkit of two parts.

1. Below are some tips and ideas on how to be more sustainable when making Fun Palaces. 
2. The checklist at the end of the toolkit is for you to print off or reference, to support you in your planning stages as to how you might make your Fun Palace more climate friendly. This checklist is also available as an online form (to save paper).

Sharing Resources:

Fun Palaces are all about a redistribution of space and resources. Before you buy anything
new for your Fun Palace, perhaps think if there is somewhere else you could source it first.
The good news is that sustainable choices are also likely to be more economically friendly
choices for your Fun Palace. Instead of buying boxes and boxes of new felt tip pens -is
there an art club,Brownie group, school or college who already have some of these lying
around that they could lend you? If you need paper, or other craft materials could you find a
way to put a call out for them?

It’s amazing what people have lying around at home, and they may be just looking for the opportunity to offload some of the clutter from their house!

Green Energy

One of the easiest ways anyone can reduce their carbon footprint is to change their energy supplier to a 100% renewables tariff.

You don’t need solar panels on your roof (though these are cool too but more expensive) – you just need to request a green tariff from your existing supplier or change to a new one! It’s as easy as a phone call or a click of a mouse and will often work out to be cheaper too! Most of the main comparison websites will help you find a green energy supplier. Make sure you pick a tariff that is guaranteed to be 100% renewables and you’ll be cooking – not on gas, but on wind and sunshine!

Asking the sustainability questions:

The chances are, if you’re making a Fun Palace, you may not get to make the big sustainability decisions about energy suppliers. However, if you are being hosted by a venue, can you ask them:

• What their sustainability policy is? 
• Do they have a green energy supplier? 
• Are they careful about energy usage in the building?
• Do they recycle? 

They may well have a sustainability policy and the answers to all of these questions, which in turn could apply to your Fun Palace. Or they might not have even thought about it, but just by you asking that question, you will have made them think about it, and in turn may set them off on their own sustainability journey – and that is one way in which all of this work can ripple out.

You can also ask this to your suppliers – arts suppliers, caterers, poster printing services (although we will send you free posters, so do ask!) and anyone who provides you with anything new.

Ideas for Sourcing Materials

• Fat Llama: A website where you can rent [almost] anything http://www.fatllama.com
• Library of things: A website where you can borrow equipment www.libraryofthings.co.uk
• Repair Café: Repair cafes operate up and down the UK and are free spaces where you can repair things (together) https://www.repaircafe.org/en/visit/
• The Restart Project: An organisation that run Restart Parties where people teach each other how to repair their broken and slow devices https://therestartproject.org
• Scrapstore: Scrapstores are places you can collect free, or cheap art materials. They are based all over the UK – google your nearest one.
• Freecycle: Get and give stuff for free in your own town https://www.freecycle.org
• Olio: an app for finding what you need and sharing what you don’t with local people https://olioapp.com/en/
• Schools / colleges / universities: can arts, science or sports departments lend you anything or give you old resources they no longer need?
• Arts Centres: may have crafting supplies such as scissors / pens / paper etc.
• Next Door: connect with other members of your community, which could be a great way to meet people and source things http://www.nextdoor.co.uk
• Local Facebook groups
• Team up with other local groups: For example, do you have a local Extinction Rebellion group? Or a local conservation group? Find the people in your area who are already engaged in sustainability work. You can talk to them about Fun Palaces, and the way in which they bring culture to local communities. Maybe some of their members will be keen to get involved in your Fun Palace and support you in sourcing materials, being sustainable and spreading the word.

Transport:

Can you encourage those who can to walk to your Fun Palace? 

• You also could just ask them – when you put up your posters in the local area, invite people to travel to your Fun Palace without using a vehicle, if they are able.
• Perhaps you could draw pathways through your village or town with chalk – could you make it interactive? For example people following your markings can jump, turn, zig-zag, spin as they follow the route (if they want to). 
• Or perhaps you could provide a digital treasure map to guide people to your Fun Palace – you could tie in some local history or culture facts along the way. 
• Or if you’re very tech savvy maybe you could make a Fun Palace playlist for people to listen to on their phone/ headphones as they travel to your Fun Palace to get them in the mood. 

After the Fun Palace:

• Have you got a plan for recycling posters / leftover arts and craft materials? 
• Have you checked out recycling at the venue? If they don’t recycle, are you able to make a plan for getting rid of waste in the most sustainable way possible? (And ask the venue if they will start to think about recycling)
• How about donating those left over felt tip pens you had to buy to a brownie group or organise a resource swap with other Fun-Palace kings and queens? 
• Can you donate leftover props, scenery or costumes to a local theatre group or even sell them to raise money for charity? 
• Can you make it your mission to send as little as humanly possible from your Fun Palace to landfill?

External organisations to check out:

• www.wearepossible.org
• www.theclimatecoalition.org
• www.juliesbicycle.co.uk
• https://wearealbert.org/search-suppliers/
• https://www.green-providers.co.uk
• https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/
• https://www.moneysupermarket.com/gas-and-electricity/green-energy/
• https://climatefresk.org/world/
• https://climateoutreach.org
• https://www.climate-spring.org/latest/story-as-strategy

If you have any sustainability tips for other Fun Palace Makers, we would love to hear from you!Email amie@funpalaces.co.uk to share your tips and ideas.

Your Fun Palace Checklist:

You can print this off to fill in as you begin planning your Fun Palace. It’s also available
as a docx here. Or, if you want to fill in an online version of the form, you can do so
here. (The Fun Palaces HQ team will be able to see what you write, but no one else will).

Suggestions:

Can your idea for a Fun Palace include some climate-positive messaging on theme? Some ideas might be:

• How do the animals do it? (Making the most of what’s around them and not creating much waste).
• What made your great, great, granny so great? (How was she more sustainable than we are now?)
• Good Fashion Vs Less-good (fast) fashion
• Veg: good for the planet and you! Can you grow some?
• A vegan / vegetarian sustainable cookery class.
• A talk on how to be sustainable in business.
• A session on greening your digital life. 
• What stories will we tell when we’re 90? 
• An up-cycling / repurposing station.
• A clothes swap.Turn it upside down and do something unexpected! (planting people / take books to a library / creating a resource cupboard in a park)

What are the elements of your Fun Palace idea likely to create the most carbon dioxide?

Some of the things you might think about are: 

• Travel
• Materials
• Venue heating/lighting

Is there anything you can do to reduce this?

How will you let people know to come to your Fun Palace?

Try to think of greener ways to get the word out, but don’t forget to include people: about 1.5 million homes in the UK don’t have internet access – how can you be sure to let those offline know about your Fun Palace?