Our carbon approach

How does this calculation work?

In 2020, the company CO2 Logic calculated the carbon footprint (Bilan Carbone^®) of La Monnaie's overall activity in 2019. The project measured two main aspects of emissions: 

• Those related to the opera production activities: energy consumption, business and artists' travel, hotels, printing programmes and sheet music, scenography, moving sets and audience travel.
• Those related to the Theatre's general activities: energy consumption, investments, purchasing, staff travel, canteen, auditions for musicians and singers, publications and waste production. 

CO2 Logic used the Bilan Carbone^® method developed by the French environmental agency ADEME (Agence de l'environnement et de la maîtrise de l'énergie) to calculate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by all the physical processes necessary for La Monnaie's activities.

What are the results?

In total for 2019, La Monnaie's CO2 impact was 3,853 tCO2e. For comparison, this is equivalent to driving around the earth 550 times or taking 1,600 return trips between Brussels and New York. Thanks to this study, we were able to understand our organisation's significant emissions sources which enabled us to define the work priorities. The overall carbon calculation reveals the following breakdown of sources of impact: general activities (43%), opera productions (45%), audience travel (10%) and streaming (2%).

For the general activities in 2019, the most significant emission sources were: the gas consumption of all the buildings (37%), investment (17%), public purchasing (13%) and staff travel (10%).

The Trilogia Mozart Da Ponte was used as a benchmark to identify the major sources of CO2 emissions in setting up our productions. Scenography (46%) is the largest source of consumption, followed by audience travel (29%) and business and artists' travel (14%).

What actions are being taken?

Following this study, themed groups were structured to organise the reduction of our institution's CO2 emissions. 

La Monnaie does not have long-term carbon reduction targets to date. This is part of the next steps. Our teams have however defined an action plan to carry out an initial emissions reduction along two pillars: show production and general operation. Based on the lessons of these reduction actions, a reduction target in line with internal recommendations that is sufficiently ambitious to be in step with the 2015 Paris agreements may be determined.