France 2030: Launch of a call for projects «Green Alternatives 2» Endowed with 25 million euros to accelerate the ecological transition of culture

Rima Abdul Malak, Minister of Culture, and Bruno Bonnell, Secretary General for Investment, in charge of France 2030, visited the animation studio Fortiche which produces the hit series «Arcane» in order to welcome the ecological approaches of the animation sector and announce the launch of a call for projects «Green Alternatives 2». This new support aims to go further in the ecological transition of all cultural sectors. Endowed with 25 million euros, in the framework of France 2030 and operated by the Bank of Territories on behalf of the State, this device will support the development of both carbon footprint calculators, the implementation of concrete solutions to decarbonize culture and continuous training tools to the challenges of the ecological transition for professionals.

The call for projects covers all cultural sectors, namely audiovisual, film, performing arts in all its disciplines, music in all its components, museums and heritage, visual arts, design, architecture, crafts, video games, books, and the press, as well as related sectors of communication and fashion for the creative side of their business.

Following the success of the first “Green Alternatives” call for projects launched in 2021 within the framework of France 2030, which was endowed with €10 million, the Government wished to accelerate both the ecological conversion of culture and strongly increase the level of state support. The aim is to make Culture an exemplary sector in terms of ecological transition by accelerating the process of decarbonization at work in all cultural fields.                                                       

THE FIRST CALL FOR PROJECTS «GREEN ALTERNATIVES» SUPPORTED 35 PROJECTS

This first call for projects was aimed at supporting concrete projects promoting in an innovative way, throughout the CCI value chain (creation, production, dissemination, end-of-life), an approach that is fully in line with the continuum the circular economy, from eco-design principles to end-of-life management strategies.

35 winners were selected in July 2022 for nearly €10 million in support of initiatives of all the sectors of the ICC (crafts, cinema and audiovisual, performing arts, fashion, design, architecture, etc.; cf. complete list in appendix). It has made it possible to develop pioneering approaches by supporting, for example, a network of eight resource centres throughout the territory, aimed at the visual arts as well as performing arts and cinema.

It has also supported collective initiatives to tackle the same problem in a given sector, as in the case of the project carried out by the Opéra de Lyon, in consortium with the Aix Festival, the Opéra national de Paris, the Théâtre du Chatelet and the Monnaie in Brussels, which aims to experiment with standard structures for opera sets. Projects in the field of image (data centres and environmentally responsible servers, green filming models, etc.) have also distinguished themselves.

WIDER AND MORE AMBITIOUS CALL FOR GREEN ALTERNATIVES 2

The second call for projects «Green Alternatives 2» has an additional €25 million from France 2030. It broadens its objectives by integrating, upstream, the challenges of measuring the environmental footprint, a prerequisite for action, and downstream, the tools of continuous training of managers, an essential element to accelerate the transformation of sectors. It is open until the end of 2024 to give candidates time to build innovative, ambitious and high impact projects for the cultural sector. This call for projects is part of the department’s priorities for the ecological transition.

In order to accelerate the ecological transition of cultural enterprises and make it a reference sector in terms of environmental responsibility, «Green Alternatives 2» will pursue the same objectives as the first call for projects, in particular that of foster the emergence of innovative “green alternatives”, replicable and structuring with regard to their potential for ecological transformation of practices in all segments of the value chain of the companies concerned (creation, production, distribution, end of life) and in all cultural sectors.

However, it will also be in this second version of generalize assessment of the environmental impact of cultural activities (carbon, short circuit, waste reduction, impact on biodiversity, life cycle of cultural digital, etc.) by developing reference measurement tools for the cultural sectors concerned. These tools will be designed, experienced, or certified, in conjunction with the operators and key players in the sector, so that all cultural companies, in their great diversity of financial and human resources, have access to resources adapted to develop a good control of their impacts (reference systems, sectoral guides of recommendations and good practices; open source dissemination of experimental results, etc.).

Finally, this version of the call for projects will be able to finance continuing training schemeswith the understanding that the deployment of green solutions requires an increase in the skills of active professionals.

Green Alternatives 2 will be open until December 2024 and will be rolled out in three waves:

• Wave 1 Closure: July 31, 2023
• Wave 2 Closure: March 2024
• Wave 3 Closure: December 2024

This new organization takes into account the experience gained from the first call for projects, with the desire to give stakeholders more visibility and time to build projects with strong ecological impacts for the sector.

The specifications of Green Alternatives 2 will be published in the first half of March and accessible on the site france2030.gouv.fr and on

https://www.culture.gouv.fr/Strategie-ICC.

About France 2030

The France 2030 investment plan:

• Reflects a dual ambition : to transform key sectors of our economy (health, energy, automotive, aeronautics and space) in the long term through technological innovation, and to position France not only as a player but also as the world leader of tomorrow. From basic research, to the emergence of an idea to the production of a new product or service, France 2030 supports the entire life cycle of innovation until its industrialization.
• Is unprecedented in its scale : €54 billion will be invested so that our companies, our universities, our research organizations, can fully achieve their transitions in these strategic sectors. The challenge is to enable them to respond in a competitive manner to the ecological challenges and attractiveness of the world that comes, and to bring out the future leaders of our lines of excellence. France 2030 is defined by two transversal objectives consisting in devoting 50% of its spending to the decarbonation of the economy, and 50% to emerging players, carriers of innovation without spending unfavourable to the environment (in the sense of the principle Do No Significant Harm).
• Will be implemented collectively : designed and deployed in consultation with economic, academic, local and European stakeholders to determine strategic orientations and flagship actions. Project promoters are invited to submit their applications via open, demanding and selective procedures to benefit from the State’s support.
• Is managed by the General Secretariat for Investment on behalf of the Prime Minister and implemented by the Ecological Transition Agency (ADEME), the National Research Agency (ANR), Bpifrance and the Bank of Territories.

More information on: france2030.gouv.fr | @SGPI_avenir

About the Bank of the Territories

Created in 2018, the Bank of the Territories is one of the five businesses of the Caisse des Dépôts. It brings together internal expertise for the territories in a single structure. As a unique client gateway, it offers tailored loan and investment financing and advisory solutions to meet the needs of local communities, social housing organizations, local public enterprises and legal professions. It is aimed at all territories, from rural areas to metropolises, with the ambition of fighting social inequalities and territorial divides. The Bank of Territories is deployed in the 16 regional directorates and 37 territorial locations of the Caisse des Dépôts in order to be better identified with its clients and as close as possible to them.

For more attractive, inclusive, sustainable and connected territories.

www.banquedesterritoires.fr / @BankDesTerr

• Projects supported by “Green Alternatives 1”