Cultural and artistic social enterprises lead in the sustainable climate transition

As the climate crisis intensifies, Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs) are stepping into a critical role. Recognized not only as storytellers and awareness-raisers but also as innovators, CCIs have a unique capacity to contribute to systemic change. Their involvement is key to realizing the ambitions of the EU Green Deal, which seeks to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030. However, many CCIs, especially small and medium-sized organizations, face pressing challenges.

With limited budgets, small teams, and increasing exposure to climate-related risks such as extreme weather, resource scarcity, and infrastructure damage, these organizations struggle to align their ecological concerns with sustainable business models. While CCIs often explore environmental topics through artistic expression, their impact remains constrained without organizational structures that support long-term, scalable change.

This is where EMCCINNO (EMpowering CCIs to boost systemic INNOvation for sustainable climate transition) comes in. Launched to empower cultural and artistic social enterprises with the tools they need to transition toward sustainability, EMCCINNO addresses the urgent need for practical, adaptable solutions. Rooted in the fertile ground of artistic innovation, community-driven transformation and sustainable climate transitions, EMCCINNO is a European project dedicated to cultivating systemic change.

“Art-based approaches and methodologies truly open the possibilities of the unknown as they feed directly from human creativity, social intelligence and the power of our imagination. Bringing them into the everyday of researchers, activists and policymakers engaged in reverting the effects of the climate emergency represents a source of actionable hope for fair and sustainable transitions.” Rocío Nogales, EMES International Research Network 

EMCCINNO addresses the urgent need to equip CCIs with tested and validated tools to increase their capacity to rapidly adapt and contribute to the climate transition. Working with cultural and artistic social enterprises (CASEs) BeTime (Spain), Friche La Belle de Mai (France), Jazz ao Centro Clube (Portugal), Association of Cultural Heritage Managers (Hungary), and Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik (Germany), the project will design, test, refine, and validate sustainable business models that will be implemented into several prototypes to drive real-world impact. The project focuses on engaging CASEs who can identify emerging social demands and environmental priorities, propose innovative and creative solutions to meet them and change values and imaginaries and inspire blueprints within the CCI and beyond it.

The project officially kicked off on 27–28 February 2025 at La Friche La Belle de Mai in Marseille, France, bringing together not only the CASEs, but all EMCCINNO partners:

• Culture Action Europe (CAE), Brussels
• Université d’Aix-Marseille (AMU), France
• Centro de Estudos Sociais (CES), Portugal
• GFZ RIFS, Germany
• GreenFormation Kft (GF), Hungary
• EMES International Research Network (EMES), Belgium
• Nomad Garden (NG), Spain

Over the next three years, EMCCINNO will nurture emergence over control, process over product, community over hierarchy. Through cooperation, research, artistic practices, training and sharing we engage in growing new methods of transforming local challenges into collective resilience.

“These transitions are already under way and the strategies and ways of ‘being many’ that we find as communities and individuals will affect not only our wellbeing but that of future generations.” Rocío Nogales, EMES International Research Network

As Europe looks toward a greener, more sustainable future, CCIs are ready to lead the way. EMCCINNO is here to ensure they have the resources, tools, and networks to do so. Culture Action Europe’s upcoming gathering, BEYOND 2025: Being Many, will, among many topics, engage sustainable climate transitions, and will invite participants to rethink traditional notions of leadership and seek to uncover alternative, empathetic and sustainable practices that thrive in uncertainty. The EMCCINNO community will be present to share more about what this unique initiative is all about, what it is set out to do, and how the project foresees engaging cultural agents in Europe and beyond.

To go deeper into the conversation, Culture Action Europe invites you to join us on 15 April for their sixth State of Culture webinar, “Culture & Sustainability,” facilitated by Rocío Nogales and Julie Ward (board members of Culture Action Europe) to dive deeper into this key topic raised in the State of Culture report.