On 22 October 2020, the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC) officially launched. The GCC is a non-profit organisation founded by a group of gallerists and professionals working in the arts as an attempt to develop a meaningful and industry-specific response to the growing climate crisis. The GCC is actively recruiting galleries, art workers and artists to join the coalition and work towards its core goal of collectively reducing carbon emissions by 50% over the next ten years (in line with the Paris Agreement), as well as promoting near zero-waste practices.
Kate MacGarry is a founding and active member of the GCC. We are committed to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and waste in line with the GCC's aim to reduce the sector’s carbon emissions by at least 50% by 2030. The art world has an important role to play in reducing emissions. Arts organisations and galleries – particularly in the Global North – have a disproportionately large impact on the environment, mainly due to arts shipping, international travel, and high use of energy and materials. We want to act to reduce these impacts in line with what the science is telling us. We actively use the GCC carbon calculator and have created a decarbonisation strategy to help us reduce our emissions in line with the GCC’s target.