Considering the environmental impact of The Children’s Bookshow

The Children’s Bookshow is committed to reducing its carbon footprint. As an organisation we tread lightly as we don’t have an office but instead are run by a community of freelance producers working from home.

However, it is when we are on tour, traveling with authors, illustrators, poets and storytellers, to deliver exciting and fun performances for children in theatres across the country, that our carbon footprint leaves a greater mark. Because we believe that it is important for children to be introduced to brilliant books from other languages and cultures, we select the very best artists from around the world to take part in our annual tour. Delivering this diversity of cultural experience means using some air travel, which also impacts on our carbon footprint.

Every year we work out our carbon footprint for the whole of our national tour using the Julie’s Bicycle Carbon Calculator and impact tracker. We enter every journey made by each person involved in the tour whether it is by car, bus, train, taxi or plane. We also include hotel accommodation.

From 2023-24 we used 6.58 tonnes of carbon. We offset this with a donation to The Woodland Trust. We are committed to looking at the best way for our producers and artists to travel and where possible we book electric/hybrid taxis and encourage travel by train. Many European artists are keen to travel by Eurostar rather than to fly for instance and we greatly appreciate this.

This year we are going to spend time researching other touring companies, looking at how they are reducing their carbon footprint and impact on the environment. We will analyse the data from Julie’s Bicycle and learn from others to make a plan to reduce our impact in this autumn’s tour.

Do have a look at our exciting partnership with the British Trust for Ornithology and our programme of activities in their home town of Thetford for Year 3 children with the wonderful authors and illustrators Helen Stephens and Neal Layton.

Every child who participates will receive either a copy of Neal Layton’s The Tree, or Helen Stephen’s Saving Mr Hoot, both of which are books with conservation at their heart. Find out more here.

We are also running a national competition for Year 3, asking children to design a bookmark with an illustration of their favourite bird on the front and a call to action on the back encouraging us all to protect birds and look after their natural habitats. There is still time to enter…