BA Technical Theatre (Production and Design)

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)

Course content related to sustainable development

Sustainability is incorporated throughout the programme, from Level 4 when students begin to look at relevant legislation and lighting fixtures, Level 5 when they start to think about sustainable working practices, culminating in Level 6 when sustainability is fully embedded into one of the main modules, Advanced Design for the Theatre. 

Within this module, students are encouraged to consider concepts of affectivity, relationality and materiality in relation to scenography, as well as ecoscenography and scenography as a political act. The Green Book, published by the Association of British Theatre Technicians is explored, which is written in three parts: sustainable productions, sustainable buildings, and sustainable operations. Based on principles from the Green Book, a key element covered during the course is reuse and exchange of sets to help address waste in the industry and prioritise a circular economy approach. In addition to this focus on material sustainability, there is also a focus on sustainable practices and processes and making the industry a sustainable career choice.

Competencies for sustainability

A key element of ESD is supporting learners to develop competencies that will help them to tackle and cope with sustainability challenges. Within the BA Technical Theatre (Production and Design) programme the key competencies developed are: 

• Critical thinking: students are encouraged to challenge the status quo, to be critical and analytical thinkers who can “push back” against existing practices in the industry where they are no longer ethical or sustainable.
• Ethical: students are encouraged to consider their own personal ethics as theatre-makers, identifying issues and interests that would drive their future professional practice. 

Pedagogical approaches

ESD uses action-orientated and transformative pedagogical approaches to facilitate taking sustainability knowledge and competencies into practice. Teaching methods and pedagogical practices used in the BA Technical Theatre (Production and Design) programme include:

• Stimulus activities 
• Experiential project work
• Opportunities for critical reflection on personal perspectives and that of others
• Group-based work
• Play-based/playful learning approaches

Questions to Dr Kelli Zezulka

Is ESD is embedded in any assessments in the module?

Every year on the BA Technical Theatre, third-year students produce a festival of environmentally engaged design-led performance work that is all driven by sustainability. This assessment comes under two modules, Advanced Design for the Theatre and Production Management Practices, with students having both design and stage or production management roles on two productions.

Each year students work from an anthology of short plays related to sustainability. In 2025/26 they are working with All Good Things Must Begin, published by Climate Change Theatre Action. Students read all of the plays then select which one they want to perform or stage. 

Students have zero budget for the productions, encouraging them to use in-house materials and equipment or borrow, repurpose, reuse or upcycle, leading to further conversations around our collective carbon footprint. 

In this assessment, design and production take precedence, allowing students full creative control and, therefore, full responsibility for the ecological impact of their design work. A student from each cohort acts as the green champion, leading on elements like carbon footprint calculations, but all are engaged with sustainability. 

How do you link ESD to other priorities such as decolonising the curriculum, acknowledging and learning from Indigenous Knowledge, and wider equity, diversity and inclusion?

The anthologies used for the assessment always feature a good range of global playwrights, including those from indigenous communities. This and other discussions help students think more broadly about international and intercultural experiences of climate change, environmental justice and their own privilege in relation to the climate crisis.

We also focus on the politics of scenography and how our work as scenographers is inherently political. We discuss how locations and sites are political, how they are occupied, and how they are co-opted for performance; how the institutions in which we create theatre are political and how hierarchies and existing power structures relate to this; and how we project our own politics into our scenography. We talk about the importance of diversifying theatre and being advocates for other people on your team.  

Human sustainability is also explored from the angle of working practices and making the career sustainable for graduates. The Working Time Directive legislation is built into the programme and in production week for the festival assessment students work only two-session days, for a maximum of eight hours a day, in contrast to the prevailing professional practice of thirteen-hour technical rehearsal days. There is sometimes a paradox here, with students needing to be aware of industry working practices but also being able to challenge them where appropriate: industry practice is not always best practice.

Why did you include ESD in your teaching?

As an industry, our work has historically had a potentially high environmental cost: we create work that is inherently temporary; we make use of raw materials (which are often used once and then disposed of); we ask audiences to travel to performance spaces at times that might not be accessible; and we work to incredibly tight timescales and immovable deadlines. By exploring sustainability principles and practices through a focus on scenography, our students have the tools to take responsibility for implementing greener habits in their own practice, while also considering sustainability more widely in terms of the time, cost, training, support, professional development and resources required to develop carbon literacy, reduce waste, and mitigate harmful industry practices. This holistic approach and critical decision-making mean that our students are better equipped to enter the industry as freelancers with the agency and knowledge they need to succeed.

What advice do you have for other academics looking to embed ESD into teaching?

Keep abreast of current industry discussions around sustainability and include plenty of time in classroom sessions for talking through these issues. Students tend to be quite well informed about sustainability and will be keen to share their ideas and concerns. Relate course content to “real-world” or professional industry scenarios that they are likely to encounter within their first couple of years of employment. Allow students autonomy and agency in creating work or in researching areas that are important to them.

Feedback from students about the programme

• “The module has made me conscious of making decisions when working professionally as to whether we could creatively recycle materials rather than buying new.”
• “Since leaving Salford, I have had different roles in a sixth form college, an events company, as a technical theatre facilitator and now in a high school. As part of my professional practice when creating sessions for young people, I use sustainability as something to inspire the designs for the participants/students. As an industry, it is a really vital way of reducing show costs and collaborating with other venues/companies that are in the same situation and moving away from a throwaway society. Across the board, we use lots of energy and disposable items but as we each start to make choices that are more sustainable, you can definitely see the difference.”