Gallery Climate Coalition
LON Gallery supports the development of a meaningful and industry-specific response to the growing climate crisis. The Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC) aims to inspire and educate, as well as provide tools that help the art world reduce its impact on the climate. LON has been a member of the GCC since 2020. Through the tools provided by the GCC, the gallery is thrilled to announce it is now climate neutral. The gallery’s annual emissions are ‘offset’ by a Strategic Climate Fund – Art to Acres.
Renewable energy
The gallery uses carbon neutral energy from a provider who is accredited by Climate Active. As energy currently makes up the gallery’s largest portion of emissions, we see this is an important first step in our commitment to sustainability. Because it is hard to regulate the integrity of offsets used by big business, the gallery intends to have its own in house solar energy system and battery by 2030, to ensure its electricity is coming from a sustainable source.
Strategic Climate Funds
As our industry evolves its’ understanding of environmental sustainability, the Gallery Climate Coalition have developed the concept of Strategic Climate Funds. Art to Acres and other environmental advisors to the GCC have developed this terminology to differentiate carbon offsetting from funds that help accelerate wider systemic change. Our priority is to reduce our emissions by using the minimal amount of carbon based resources as possible, influencing our suppliers and making changes to minimise waste in all we do. While reduction is our priority, we are also supporting organisations with carbon sequestering projects. Our 2021 carbon emissions have been ‘offset’ by our contribution to the Art to Acres conservation project in Sevilla de Oro, Ecuador. Our donation to Art to Acres has allowed the conservation of 880 acres of land in the Municipal Conservation Area. This project by Art to Acres funds the declaration of the new protected area and this is a high-level carbon protection (for climate) and key biodiversity conservation act. In 2022, the gallery made a further contribution towards Art to Acres to support their goal of conserving 61,776 acres of land in the Catamayo Municipality, Ecuador. The gallery maintains annual contributions to our chosen SCF to account for our carbon footprint.
Recycling
The gallery uses recycled materials for the shipping and storing of works where possible. LON works collaboratively with a variety of businesses to repurpose disused timber and packaging materials, contributing to a circular economy. The gallery gladly accepts recyclable materials from patrons, which are repurposed in house or recycled through recycling partner Red Cycle.
Please note: our collaboration with Red Cycle has been temporarily suspended until they reinstate their program.
‘Paying the Rent’
LON Gallery recognises that Australia is founded on land that was stolen from Indigenous people and that the wealth that has been generated by that theft is disproportionately distributed. All people who live here today, or who have lived here in the past, have not benefited equally from the continuing dispossession of Indigenous people. Indeed, many are deliberately and profoundly marginalised from power and the spoils of colonialism. LON Gallery believes that Paying the Rent is a step towards acknowledging these facts. It is part of a process that all non-Indigenous people – individually and collectively – need to enter into if we are to move towards justice, truth, equality and liberation for First Nations people. A portion of the gallery’s income is donated to the grassroots organisation, Pay the Rent on an annual basis.
