Establish relationships and cooperate with various formal and informal entities. This will help you share production costs with other institutions, create alliances for the benefit of local nature, exchange knowledge and provide support while introducing pro-environmental changes. Networks and partnerships can be local, firmly embedded in and focused on a particular site, or supralocal, geared towards the development and promotion of sustainable activities and advocacy. Remember that creating and developing partnerships requires patience, perseverance and, above all, looking at goals broader than the interests of one institution or organisation.
STEP 1
First, identify the needs of your institution/organisation and appreciate your own resources, particularly human resources (and the associated competences), but also material and legal. Analyse what is located in your local environment. Talk to other people and institutions about common needs and issues. Even if it turns out that institutional cooperation is not possible at this moment, it may still be possible at the level of specific people. Perhaps your institution offers greater freedom of action and you are more able to make decisions, while in other organisations the situation differs. Get to know people and ask around. Start with a small initiative and develop it together as far as possible.
Identify your own resources and get to know your neighbourhood
The first step is to identify the resources of your own organisation and define the potential of the local environment at the social, cultural, natural, architectural, institutional and entrepreneurial levels. It is customary to think about local residents because they are our potential audience. But it is worth looking for partners among NGOs operating in the local area, informal and activist groups, other local institutions (such as kindergartens, libraries, children’s playgrounds), entities managing green areas, housing cooperatives, as well as local businesses. It is a good idea to begin with creating a map of the area and on that basis, find common points of interest. The goals of neighbouring organisations may coincide, e.g. they may be united by their care of the area. When preparing a map of your neighbours and shared goals, make sure you create a map of your own resources as well. Investigate your institution’s usefulness to local ecosystems. Local cultural workers or activists can help with the diagnosis process. Mapping your own resources and the resources of your neighbourhood is a popular tool in community development. You can do this during a workshop for colleagues from different departments. There is no need to spend a lot of time on it – it is enough to define your greatest potential and needs. You need to know not only what you want to offer, but also what you are looking for. Use visual forms for this work. You may want to think of your map as an invitation to encourage potential individuals and partner institutions to cooperate.
Neighbourhoods
Creating a map of your neighbours: institutional, commercial (shops, restaurants, services), human and non-human inhabitants (flora and fauna) will allow you to see a multidimensional space. It is a space for living, the daily commute between work and home, recreational walks, it is a work space, a space for management, as well as a habitat for an uncountable number of non-human organisms. Try becoming co-responsible for a specific area and relationships that shape this space. These values are important for pro-environmental thinking.
> In 2024, the Warsaw Nature Social Archive was launched, with the aim of collecting stories, photographs and other materials that show how rich the local ecosystem is. The Archive is part of a wider programme ‘Miastozdziczenie’ (Wild City), initiated by the Puszka Foundation Archiwum – an initiative promoting social and expert knowledge on biodiversity in the capital. It is worth drawing on this approach, because nature is an important point of reference, part of everyday life and a source of inspiration. It does not have to be spectacular or exotic. It is a gesture of appreciation for what is, rather than a search for unique specimens.
> The Żoliborz Cultural Centre came up with an idea for environmental and artistic education, which involved other organisations such as the Łucznica Academy Association and Stowarzyszenie Przyjaciół SOS Association. The ‘PięknoPole’ project refers to admiration for the landscape, developing sensitivity in contact with nature and appreciating localness.
Perhaps there already exists some network in your vicinity or sector which you can join. If not, you can initiate it (advice on how to establish and develop relations of good neighbourliness is included in the section on GOOD NEIGHBOURLINESS). Many institutions and organisations cooperate informally to promote local identity.
> Read about the ‘Recipe for Muranów’ project, co-created by the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which focused on strengthening the local identity.
> The Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle initiated ‘Green Jazdów’, active in the years 2015-2016, which promoted the green areas of Jazdów.
> Komuna Warszawa, which is housed in a former school building, decided to make use of its green space. As a gesture to its neighbours, it is offering a ‘Garden of Respite’, which is intended to respond to the need for green, relaxing spaces in the city centre.
> An interesting climate initiative – ‘Libraries for the Climate’ – is run by the Information Society Development Foundation (FRSI), which is trying to turn libraries into local centres for reflection and action on climate issues. In many places, libraries are still the only place accessible to everyone that operates free of charge, where people can spend time and take advantage of cultural offerings. By organising workshops and meetings with experts, local communities can develop their resilience to the effects of climate crises, support each other and mobilise for action.
> Another way of strengthening neighbourhood ties are festivals which take place in the context of a given place and environmental challenges. In 2023, BWA Opole organised the Bolko Island festival – an important place in the local topography due to its unique nature, but also due to flooding. Opole is in a state of permanent flood risk, and thanks to artistic projects, this topic has a chance to reach different audiences and thus raise awareness and inspire change for the environment.
Support in the region
It is worth seeking out partnerships and coalitions within a common district, province or region. When institutions and organisations are organised by the same central body, it is easier to fight together for new green standards.
> One example of such activity is offered by the Green Institutions of Tri-city and Pomerania, which created a network consisting of 21 institutions in 2023. Each of these institutions is at a different stage of green transition. A survey was carried out among the institutional members, which demonstrated that:
– in 5 out of 17 institutions which responded to the survey, there are dedicated structures (coordinators, representatives).
– 3 out of 17 institutions have dedicated teams;
– 6 out of 17 institutions have informal groups;
– 4 out of 17 institutions have green activities based on individual persons
10 of the 17 institutions taking part in the survey have already implemented some elements of green transition, while 7 institutions take inspiration from others.
What does the green transition involve in these institutions? It may include: limiting or changing the nature of purchases, investing in infrastructure, reducing the electronic carbon footprint, introducing checklists as attachments to contracts, introducing environmental documents, establishing green teams, measuring the carbon footprint, and implementing environmental projects.
Working groups
Create working groups inside the institution (see also: GREEN TEAMS) as well as outside. Find out if such a network already exists in your city, if not – set it up. Take a look at eco-themed projects, both big ones, such as exhibitions connected with this topic, and smaller ones, such as workshops on building pollinator houses or sowing wildflower meadows. Contact the people who carried out these initiatives in your area. Perhaps you will find common goals and needs and share your experience and knowledge. Such support networks are organised by institutions, for example, in connection with audience development (e.g. Adeste+ operating in Warsaw). Urban initiatives and movements also create their networks for sharing experiences. A networking event may be a good place for meeting up, discussing challenges and setting up a working group.
> A website dedicated to Adeste+.
> One example of an urban networking initiative was Residents’ Forum City Common Cause organised by an NGO – Towarzystwo Inicjatyw Twórczych ‘ę’. A working group may serve in exchanging experiences and offering support but also for deepening one’s knowledge. You can invite experts, naturalists, activists, representatives of ecological and climate-related movements to your meetings. Such a working group may become a basis of a wider coalition:
STEP 2
Partnerships and coalitions may be built around cultural activities but they can also be made with non-institutional neighbours, residents, informal movements. You can learn a lot from each other, including diverse approaches to problem-solving. Together you can co-manage a site or a social cultural project. Finally, you can simply share material resources – lend and borrow multimedia equipment or elements of flexible architecture.
Co-management
You can initiate a transition towards the co-management formula, e.g. of a site used by several stakeholders. Open Jazdów estate in Warsaw is a very motivating example of long-time work for a specific area. This initiative began as a defence of a Finnish wooden house estate, and over the years has transformed into the creation of a multi-stakeholder consortium which strives to develop and implement a model of co-managing this site. The initiative came from the residents of the estate, who found support among activists, informal groups and NGOs. Using participatory tools provided by the City Hall, such as the local initiative programme or the civic budget, it was possible not only to defend the estate from demolition, but also retain the democratic formula of work. Currently, the estate has many equal hosts: families living in the houses, NGOs renting the houses to run their activities, informal groups, a branch of a cultural centre, a formal site manager, and municipal authorities. Numerous texts, recommendations and the history of this place can be found on Otwarty Jazdów’s website. Co-management can be a good tool to create a group of local hosts of, for example, city squares surrounded by cultural institutions.
> In 2025 Open Jazdów declared its independence. The idea for ‘Free Jazdów’ is linked to the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Finnish housing estate and a campaign to draw the city council’s attention to communication issues surrounding this topic. Activists and social organisations fear that the future of Jazdów may become commercialised.
> For at least 10 years, there has also been a case concerning the Przyjaźń housing estate, built in the 1950s in Warsaw’s Bielany (Bemowo) district. Wooden houses, rural idyll, but also unresolved legal and ownership issues. On the one hand, the estate receives insufficient funds to maintain the buildings, and on the other, there is also a strong community which has formed the Przyjaźń Housing Estate Initiative.
> A good example of a coalition for a friendly urban space that also takes into account the needs of non-human beings is the Place Warszawy (Squares of Warsaw) project, where you will find relevant recommendations as well as texts explaining how to think about the changing role of squares.
> In 1998, a group of creative individuals began working in a neglected building in Krakow’s Podgórze district. Several decades have passed, during which time the studios and warehouses, places without any particular identity, have become a real community. Skład Solny is a place where 26 creative individuals, five NGOs, nine music bands, two art galleries, a music club, a recording studio, a luthier’s workshop and a shipyard operate (2025). Groups, organisations and individuals work together to develop a model of operation, and many of them are involved in environmental activities (e.g. Siostry Rzeki).
Programme Council
It is a tool offering a permanent formula and a certain status of substantive cooperation, which involves as many entities operating in a given area as possible. Substantive decisions of a multi-member formation are taken by the council, not by one institution. This gives more insight into the needs of the local community and more perspectives and goals that intersect in the area. At the same time, council members become ambassadors of the themes present in the institution’s programme. The scope of the council’s activities may relate to the area shared by many entities, but it may also be the initiative of one institution which wants to involve representatives of various groups from its neighbourhood and its audience in the conceptual work on its programme.
> A good example of the above is the Programme Council of the Bródno Sculpture Park, which consists of representatives of an art institution (Museum of Modern Art), local authority (representatives of the Culture and Promotion Department of the Targówek District Authority and councillors), local institutions (Ogród Jordanowski children’s playground, Czytelnia Naukowa reading room), head of the District Commission for Social Matters (representing the point of view of local NGOs) and initiator of the Park – artist Paweł Althamer. A multi-member Council as the actual governor of the Sculpture Park takes decisions on artistic projects to be undertaken. An ideal programme council should also include local activists and people representing the world of nature.
Sharing resources
Entering into cooperation with other institutions, organisations and groups may also have a physical and, at the same time, financial dimension, the result of which would be reduced carbon footprint of the projects carried out. What is meant here is, of course, sharing, exchanging and reducing production with individual products. (see also: PRODUCTION: MATERIALS, EVENT PRODUCTION).
You can share your space and make it available for other entities. You can share your equipment and furnishings e.g. tables, chairs, multimedia equipment, exhibition infrastructure and elements of set design, temporary architecture. To enable this it would be a good idea to create an internal catalogue of assets, just as Zachęta National Art Gallery in Warsaw did. The next step would be to create a central catalogue / store of assets, which would make it possible for municipal institutions and organisations to share items or elements of set design.
> This idea was taken up by Spółdzielnia Kultury in Warsaw. The repository is mainly devoted to cultural centres, libraries, NGOs, informal groups and groups of Warsaw residents. In order for it to develop, larger institutions should join this platform, too. A British version of such a cooperative looks like this.
You can also share your guests, especially foreign ones. You can share the costs of their travel to a given city, both take advantage of the effort associated with travelling and reduce carbon footprint. This requires institutions to have a conscious attitude to programming based on cooperation rather than competition. You can also share digital services, such as platforms for online meetings.
STEP 3
Cooperate with institutions and entities operating within culture, but not only. Try cooperating with environmental movements as well and creating climate coalitions. Initiatives involving multiple entities will be more efficient in demanding changes in legal regulations. The obligation to respect environmental indicators when running various social activities should constitute a common goal.
Partnerships with environmental movements
Invite activist groups or environmental movements to become involved in the common conceptual work. This is an important and inclusive tool because on the one hand, it enriches the programme with relevant content and ensures high quality presentation and on the other, it gives the floor to other, less audible groups or movements. This makes conscious use of the symbolic capital which every cultural institution has at its disposal. It also gives very real support to the topic or problem which a given group or movement is concerned about.
> As far as art is concerned, an example of multi-entity cooperation may be the exhibition ‘Magical Engagement’ carried out at the Municipal Gallery Arsenał in Poznań. The exhibition gave the floor to the eco-movements Obóz dla Puszczy (Camp for Białowieża Forest) and the Wild Carpathians Initiative, on equal footing with the curators, artists and activists (2020).
> Flow is a mobile artistic residency on the River Vistula that has been run by artists Agnieszka Brzeżańska and Ewa Ciepielewska for a decade. Every year, a wooden scow travels many kilometres, carrying people from the artistic community, who spend their time there and develop their environmental awareness. Ewa Ciepielewska talks more about this project in a conversation with Aleksandra Jach (2021).
> Siostry Rzeki cooperate with the coalition Ratujmy Rzeki (Save Rivers).
> The House of Nature and Culture in Teremiski (Dom Przyrody i Kultury w Teremiskach) is building a community around nature issues. More on this topic: Jędrzej Dudkiewicz, ‘W sercu Puszczy. Jak Dom Przyrody i Kultury w Teremiskach buduje społeczność i chroni przyrodę’ [‘In the heart of the forest. How the House of Nature and Culture in Teremiski builds community and protects nature’], (2024).
> A project around the Irrigation Fields in Wrocław initiated cooperation between the cultural world and environmental organisations, public institutions and science: the Natural History Museum in Wrocław, the Department of Sustainable Development of the City of Wrocław, the Municipal Water and Sewage Company of Wrocław, the State Archives in Wrocław, the EcoDevelopment Foundation, and EkoUnia. More about the project here: Arek Gruszczyński, Fields (2021).
> The Wola Cultural Centre (WCK) organised the ‘Ecologies of Culture’ festival in collaboration with the Culture for Climate collective (2025).
> An example of an inter-institutional initiative is ‘C-Change: Culture and Art in the Fight Against Climate Change’ implemented in Wrocław, which aims to establish cooperation between the city and cultural centres in order to take action to protect the environment, and its main goal is to establish relationships between institutions in a given city.
> Coalitions of creative individuals can take the form of a collective supporting activism in the fields of culture, society and politics. The Post-Artistic Services Office (BUP) is involved in anti-fascism, but also climate and other issues, cooperating with institutions without being dependent on them. The BUP’s slogan is: ‘imagination is our weapon’, which they have proven many times by participating in protests, marches, conventions and meetings where it was important to combine different dimensions of social function with creative thinking.
> One of the BUP’s projects is its involvement in Opolno-Zdrój, a former spa village which was swallowed up by the Turów lignite mine. After the mining concession was extended, a group of creative and local people got together and decided to highlight the specific environmental, social and economic costs of this rampant extractivism.
Coalitions for climate
You can also build alliances with other institutions and organisations associated with culture. You do not have to start off by setting up an intercity network with the most important cultural institutions. It is much better to start with a narrower but deeper local collaboration. It is easier then to find time and space to work out common goals and values, and define directions of action.
> One of the most inspiring coalitions of culture-for-climate networks is Manchester-based GMAST.
> Cultural institutions and organisations from Brno have also set up a coalition for climate and are calling the city authorities to declare a climate emergency. Arts and culture institutions from Prague also create a network and have proclaimed a climate emergency.
> Climate emergency is also referred to by the Culture Declares Emergency movement, which collects signatures on its website from individuals and organisations in the UK who wish to support ‘justice, work towards regenerative change and provide care through culture, heritage and the arts’. In their manifesto, they state explicitly that culture and the arts bear joint responsibility for the ecological and climatic state of the world. They point to the need for a fundamental change in the way institutions are run.
> Museums Facing Extinction is a research project that places great emphasis on working with different communities in the context of climate change.
> Museums for Future is a grassroots global network of museums and cultural institutions, building a community based on an environmental declaration signed by its members.
Apart from making declarations and working with your institution for change, you can join working groups with a wide range. An example of such a group is ‘Wikipedia for climate’ which is supported by the Nauka o Klimacie portal (Climate Science). As we know, Wikipedia is a basic source of knowledge for nearly everyone. Therefore, the reach of well-written entries for the ecological and climate crisis will be really significant. As institutions, we can also support climate movements.
> While making its first exhibition, the Virtual Museum of the Anthropocene decided that the proceeds from the exhibition and the accompanying events will go to the Wild Carpathians Initiative. This means that all the funds donated during a voluntary collection will be handed over to this initiative, which protects the trees of the Carpathian forest from logging.
Exerting influence on regulations
When working in a partnership, network or other community to minimise the effects of the climate crisis, it is worth setting increasingly ambitious goals. With your attitude and actions, demand changes to regulations in city and municipality offices and actively participate in creating local environmental policies. Finally, influence trends and change the law on a national scale. This stage requires a lot of willpower and commitment, so act together and do not get discouraged by failures.
Inspired by cultural institutions and organisations, the City of Warsaw began to include environmental criteria in competitions for director positions in cultural institutions, strategic documents supporting municipal cultural policy, and grant competition rules.
> This document is the result of joint efforts by cultural education practitioners and the City of Warsaw. The natural environment and climate change were deemed two of the most important topics in the field of education. Read more: Cultural education (2022).
> ‘When analysing the candidate’s programme for the day-to-day operation and development of the Theatre, the selection committee will pay particular attention to… proposals for pro-environmental activities within the framework of the cultural institution’s operation and plans for their implementation’: this quote comes from a stipulation in the announcement of the competition for the position of director at the Zbigniew Hübner Powszechny Theatre (2024).
> The rules of the competition organised by the Cultural Education Fund include the following provision: The production of events submitted in the competition should be environmentally sustainable and, where possible, based on the use of local resources, the reduction of energy-intensive promotional projects and cooperation with environmentally friendly suppliers and contractors. Guidelines on energy-intensive production can be found on the Culture for Climate website. We encourage you to use the Cooperative’s resources.
> Entry in a competition for social organisations for cultural education in Warsaw: “The processes of planning, creating, producing and presenting cultural objects and events should take into account concern for the social and natural environment – for resources, climate, and economic and social cohesion.” (in: Competition announcement, Additional information, point C).
