Green Mobility is a Shared and Collective Responsibility: Interview with On the Move Secretary General Marie Le Sourd

Read this interview with On the Move Secretary General Marie Le Sourd about green mobility, published on the Arts and Theatre Institute and the Czech Republic Creative Europe Des k Culture’s newsletter ‘Compost’. This is a result of a collaboration with and by two On the Move members: Arts and Theatre Institute (Czech Republic) and Motovila (Slovenia).

The interview is also available in Slovenian here and Czech here.

Arts and Theatre Institute (ATI): Sustainability and mobility often seem contradictory—how can cultural mobility become more environmentally responsible while maintaining openness and exchange?

Marie Le Sourd (MLS): In terms of environmental sustainability, the two terms may seem contradictory, as the concept of ‘mobility’ is too often reduced to the question of the means of transport used by artists and culture professionals, whereas cultural mobility is much more than just getting from point A to point B. This is what we want to highlight and defend in our proposed holistic definition of ‘green mobility’ in the arts and cultural sector, as above highlighted.

Environmental sustainability and cultural mobility should be for us a way of reinventing fairer and more place-based patterns of cultural mobility, open to a greater diversity of artists and cultural workers, for example with longer periods of time where possible, stronger connections with the contexts in which mobility takes place, forms of priority support for artists for whom mobility is a necessity etc.

ATI: What is the relationship between artistic mobility and climate justice?

MLS: As stated in Climate Justice: Through the Creative Lens of the Performing Arts, ‘Addressing climate change from a climate justice angle, requires a transformation of values as well as forms of relationship, redressing the unequal legacy of the past and rebuilding more balanced forms of exchange with one another and towards nature’.

A similar and complementary shift of values is also needed in relation to international cultural mobility, given the inequalities in access to resources. Our recent Cultural Mobility Yearbook 2025 highlights the huge disparities that still exist in terms of opportunities to develop one’s artistic practice depending on where you are in the world: ‘Europe is the region most active in our data, reflecting higher levels of cultural funding for international travel. In 2024, 73.7% of all calls either had an organiser based in Europe or supported mobility to the region’.

With this climate justice-based approach, we defend the idea that climate change should be a way to reinvent international patterns of cultural cooperation, rather than a new form of obstacle for artists and cultural practitioners evolving in less connected and supported contexts, for whom mobility and cross-border connections are vital.

ATI: What is the SHIFT eco-certification for networks? What makes a network sustainable?

MLS: The SHIFT eco-certification for networks derives from the SHIFT eco-guidelines for networks that were developed by 9 European cultural networks, including On the Move, part of an ERASMUS project in 2019-2021. The SHIFT Eco-Guidelines for Networks recognise and address the ecological footprint associated with operating international cultural networks The guidelines serve as a reference document for network-organisations that aim to minimise their footprint, optimise environmentally sustainable practices, and act as an example of good practice for their members and other networks. They are purposely made openly accessible in the hope they can inspire structural organisational change in the cultural sectors, in the broadest sense.

They have been developed by us (transnational cultural networks) on the basis of the specificities of our ecosystems (meetings and travels are the biggest impact of our activities, small team sometimes working remotely, co-produced events with yearly changing regulations depending on the context, etc.).

Since 2023, and in collaboration with Culture for Climate Scotland and Vector 42, we have subsequently developed a certification that addresses the different norms of the guidelines (governance, communication, events, travel, office, etc.), articulated around a regular assessment of our work, peer-to-peer learning, collective training and a final audit meeting. The approach is perhaps less about how to make a network more sustainable than about embedding the issue of environmental sustainability in the way we work, organise, communicate, build evidence and with regard to On the Move, embrace the multifaceted aspects of cultural mobility.

ATI: Sustainability has been a great topic for On the Move in recent years. Can you explain what is On the Move’s environmental sustainability policy? How does it translate to the activities of the network such as organization of the Cultural Mobility Forum in Riga now in April?

MLS: On the Move’s environmental sustainability policy has been developed in collaboration with The Green Room, a member organisation with expertise in environmental sustainability in the arts and cultural sector and mobility issues. It is a document that frames our values, policies and related actions to green our practices at all levels of the network’s activities. It is a key reference document that, for example, highlights core definitions (cultural mobility, green mobility, mobility justice) as well as practical ways to address them in line with the SHIFT eco-certification for networks (key commitments, sustainable action plan, travel policy, etc.).

If we take the case of the Cultural Mobility Forum in Riga, there are several components to consider:

how we calculate the carbon footprint impact of the people whose travel expenses we cover (team, board members, speakers, moderators, rapporteurs, etc.).),
the way we design the Forum and related activities (including professional visits to cultural venues in Riga) to optimise people’s travel,
the way we embed the theme of cultural mobility and environmental sustainability during the Forum, the OTM General Assembly and related working group meetings,
the 11 conditions we agreed with our local partner and member, the Northern Dimension Partnership on Culture, to avoid waste, save energy and limit impact (no use of plastic bottles, no tote bags or communication paper materials, local/vegetarian food etc.).

ATI: On the Move has a decision-making tool to help for the decision to attend / organise an event or a meeting in a particular location. The tool consists of 15 practical questions. How did you create it? Do you use it when planning your events and trips?

MLS: In line with the development of the above policy and related documents (travel policy, etc.), The Green Room and its director, Gwendolenn Sharp, have developed this simple but practical action tool, not only to help us decide where to hold our annual forum, but also to help us choose among the many invitations we receive each year (to facilitate a workshop, to speak at a conference, to participate in professional meetings, etc.) These questions are useful to think about mobility and participation in a holistic way: why is my participation important? What can we contribute as a network? Can we connect to another context and unfold less visible mobility stories? What will we bring back to our own working context? Etc.

For example, in 2024 we participated in 68 events: 40 online (59%), 21 face-to-face (31%) and 7 hybrid events (10%). In the same year, we also decided to decline invitations from 13 organisations that would have invited us to various locations in Belgium, France, Lithuania, Slovenia, Spain, Ukraine and Taiwan, and to propose alternatives such as recommending colleagues in the same countries/regions, proposing resources, working together on another occasion, etc.

The tool has become quite popular among other networks and it is even adapted in other contexts (like a music venue Le Périscope in Lyon) or translated in Slovenia by OTM member, Motovila (see the reference at the bottom of On the Move’s Environmental Sustainability Policy page).

ATI: What are some of the most promising initiatives or practices you’ve seen in the arts sector that successfully balance mobility and sustainability?

MLS: There are many, and many of them come from the sector. I would group them into five categories:

Mobility Funding schemes: The Culture Moves Europe’s mobility scheme (supported by the European Union) is one of the only mobility funding lines that includes a ‘green top up’ to take into consideration higher cost and time spent for artists and culture professionals using bus or train instead of planes for their travels. Even if the funding could be higher in some contexts, this initiative should encourage other mobility funders to do the same in other contexts,
A ‘green’ residency in every sense (travel, content, contextualisation): the SAARI residency in Finland, funded by the Kone Foundation, describes itself as an ‘environmentally sustainable residency’ while remaining connected to the world, with a special focus on artists from the Global South,
Travel as part of the artistic project: with for instance, as reported in On the Move’s Cultural Mobility Yearbook 2025, ‘The E75 Art Bus project (part of the Oulu2026 European Capital of Culture Programme) in which artists explored the Europe Road 75, a 5,639-kilometre-long route that starts from Vardø in Norway and ends at Siteia in Crete, Greece. The bus travels through Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Greece and artists participate in a residency between April and June 2025 (ranging from six weeks to two months). During the residency period in 2025, the organisers will implement one to three online events that connect the residencies. The new artworks produced in the project will be experienced along the road (at 20+ stopping places) and on the bus. This approach is interesting in that it addresses the challenge of the time and distance involved in slow and more sustainable travel, while at the same time rethinking how these elements can be used in the design of the project, by engaging audiences along the route’.
Measuring, communicating and acting on impact: one of the (many) examples is the one by the IMPALA network with their Impala Carbon Calculator Report for independent music labels in Europe.
Reflection and experimentation: some European projects like the ERASMUS* project ‘Ready, Steady, Go!’ questions through their participants’ feedback the notion of green mobility in the Mediterranean context. The guidelines they propose include a special reference as well to ‘Green mobility open to everyone’

While many projects could have been grouped together in this short typology, the first cluster on mobility funding schemes is one of the thinnest. As our most recent Cultural Mobility Yearbook in 2025, which is based on similar observations since 2022, shows, when the topic of sustainability is high on the agenda (13.8% in 2024 against 7.3% of the mobility calls in 2022), funding support for longer trips, stays and related changes in mobility patterns remains minimal.

ATI: Many artists and cultural professionals face financial and systemic barriers to adopting greener mobility solutions. What policy changes or funding mechanisms could help overcome these challenges?

MLS: Many artists and cultural practitioners face financial and systemic barriers at different levels to support their work and practice, to tour, to engage internationally or to meet their peers, to process visas, to negotiate newer forms of contracts (participation in a virtual performance rather than an on-site participation in a festival with a lower form of contract and potential for networking), and so on.

The aspect of ‘green mobility’ can be seen as another layer of complexity in this context, since, as mentioned above, if the issue of environmental sustainability is a growing trend, adapted funding support for more sustainable means of transport, longer residencies, support for artist/parents for longer tours, etc. is not or not sufficiently implemented. This situation needs to be addressed more pro-actively, hence the mention in our definition of green mobility of a ‘shared responsibility’ (between funders, policy makers and the arts sector at large) and an opportunity to rethink support for mobility formats that are both global in their approach and allow some flexibility for specific needs and contexts.

ATI: On an individual level, what advice would you give to artists and cultural workers who want to make their international collaborations more sustainable?

MLS: Consider, acknowledge, and map what you already do, because usually at an individual level or in smaller organisations we already do a lot without knowing it. Inform yourself; there are many guides and toolkits available, such as those mentioned in this article and below. Find your allies in the sector, especially to defend the specificity of your situation, context, etc. and what you can bring to this conversation to rethink cultural mobility patterns.

Further resources:

Compost #7, the issue on sustainable mobility, was produced in association with the CzechMobility.Info. You can sign up to the newsletter here.

Marie Le Sourd is since 2012 the Secretary General of On the Move, the international cultural mobility information network. Prior to this position, Marie Le Sourd worked in Singapore for the Asia-Europe Foundation (Cultural Department) from 1999 till 2006 and directed the French Cultural Centre in Yogyakarta-Indonesia from 2006 till 2011.

CzechMobility.Info is one of the projects of the ATI. It is a Czech InfoPoint providing advice in the areas of international artistic cooperation and orientation in the Czech labor law environment. Its aim is to help professionals engaged in the cultural sector to deal with the practical issues such as contracts, taxes, visas or insurance. The core of the project lies in the online information portal, but the InfoPoint’s activities also include consultations and workshops. CzechMobility.Info is one of the Mobility Information Points of the On the Move

The Arts and Theatre Institute (ATI) is a state-funded organisation established by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic. The mission of ATI is to provide the Czech and international public with a comprehensive range of services in the field of theatre and other arts (music, literature, dance and visual arts). The ATI collects and archives works and objects relating to the theatre and facilitates access to them. It pursues research, organises and participates in international projects across all disciplines of art, supports internationalisation of the Czech cultural scene and publishes scholarly work. The ATI is also where the Czech Creative Europe Desk – Culture is based.