Client: Exhibition Road Cultural Group (ERCG)
Objective
To support the Exhibition Road Cultural Group in achieving sustainability through a shared vision, goals, collaboration, and decarbonisation efforts.
Case Study
The Exhibition Road Cultural Group (ERCG) is made up of 23 member organisations located within South Kensington, bringing together leading cultural and educational organisations to promote innovation and learning within the home of science, arts, and inspiration. Members include The Natural History Museum, Design Museum, V&A, Royal Albert Hall, as well as the two councils, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council, a number of higher education institutions including Imperial College London, Royal College of Art and the Royal College of music as well several religious and cultural institutions.
Working together, the ERCG are dedicated towards addressing the problems that are beyond the scope of the individual organisations, tapping into new and different resources and funding pots, and creating efficiencies through partnership. 3ADAPT were initially commissioned by the ERCG to undertake a situational analysis of the maturity of the ERCG members with respect to their carbon and sustainability activities.
Then through establishing an appropriate governance structure, including a steering group as well as four thematic working groups, we worked collaboratively with the members over a concentrated 4-month programme of activity. This period outputted a collective sustainability vision and associated neighbourhood goals, along with an accompanying programme of work to progress towards these ambitions. This involved significant engagement with over 60 stakeholders from across the 23 member organisations. This collective endeavour is the South Kensington Zero Emissions Nature Positive (South Ken ZEN+) Neighbourhood.
“The team at 3ADAPT have been invaluable our journey towards becoming a Zero Emissions, Nature Positive neighbourhood. The team’s clear understanding and appreciation of the huge diversity within our membership – in terms of sector, size, complexity and maturity – has greatly contributed to the development of approaches and solutions that work for everyone. Their expertise, diplomacy and support have been transformative in helping us to build critical baselines for this collective endeavour and enabled nine of our members to establish their first ever Carbon footprint in 2024!”
The absence of a shared reporting framework to track progress was identified as a significant obstacle to progress. In response, 3ADAPT, sponsored by the Future Observatory and Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), was tasked to devise such a framework (Library | Future Observatory). Using a thorough literature review, workshops, interviews, and assessments, 3ADAPT formulated a framework aimed at promoting collective action, enhancing cross-organisational learning, and providing a flexible yet structured approach for varied reporting maturity stages.
In 2024, 3ADAPT supported the group and the collection of organisations, which range in size and sector, to develop a group carbon footprint and have produced the group wide report and web hosted PowerBI Dashboard; focussing on leveraging existing data, as well as upskilling and empowering the less mature organisations. We have also supported the development of a procurement workstream, aimed to establish shared sustainable procurement principles and a formal charter which has seen cross organisational collaboration of procurement and sustainability professionals.
The work continues and 2025 promises to be a year of accelerated action, as decarbonisation planning can be enhanced with a good understanding of where interventions can have the largest positive impacts across the group. 3ADAPT in collaboration with the ERCG are continuing their support through facilitation and scenario planning to provide tailored support to accelerate decarbonisation activities across the members.
