Artichoke The Gallery Season 5: Making It Easier to Be Green

For International Day of Clean Energy on 26 January, Artichoke reflects on our partnership with CUR8 to remove the CO2 emissions created by artists’ travel and accommodation as part of The Gallery Season 5 exhibition, It’s Not Easy Being Green

The Gallery  Season 5’s theme, It’s Not Easy Being Green,  highlights the climate emergency and uses the profile of The Gallery  to reach a wide range of audiences to encourage debate and action.

As with all our projects, Artichoke aims to minimise our impact on the environment. To ensure the production values were in line with the Season 5 theme, we worked with sustainability consultants A Greener Future to calculate CO2 emissions created from international travel and accommodation related to the project. We then worked with CUR8 to remove the 17 tonnes of residual emissions associated with the project.

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What CUR8 do

CUR8 build high-quality and diverse carbon removal portfolios that enable companies to invest in carbon impact with confidence.

For The Gallery, Season 5, the CUR8 team selected projects in the UK, Brazil, and elsewhere, sourcing and evaluating a portfolio of carbon removal projects that ranged from nature to technology-based, including:

The Future Forest Company

A Northern Brown Argus Butterfly sits on a leaf with a blurred green background.

Image: Northern Brown Argus Butterfly spotted after 100 years. Photo courtesy of The Future Forest Company

This Scottish nature restoration leader is transforming degraded grassland into thriving native woodland across Scotland and northern England. Through their award-winning landscape-scale projects, they’re capturing carbon whilst restoring ancient woodlands, creating wildflower meadows and protecting rare species like the Northern Brown Argus butterfly.

The Future Forest Company’s important work demonstrates how nature-based solutions can deliver climate action whilst regenerating ecosystems for future generations.

InPlanet

Left: A tractor on a field. Right: Two field agents in white labcoats and gardening gloves take samples from a field Left: InPlanet tractor. Right: InPlanet operations team on site. Images courtesy of InPlanet

Based in Brazil, InPlanet is pioneering enhanced weathering technology that accelerates nature’s own carbon removal process. By partnering with local farmers to apply finely crushed basalt rock to tropical soils, they remove CO₂ from the atmosphere while simultaneously restoring soil health and increasing crop productivity.

Brazil’s tropical climate makes it an ideal location for this innovative approach, which recently achieved a historic milestone as the first enhanced weathering project to issue independently verified carbon removal credits.

“A year ago, Enhanced Weathering was considered too complex to track. Now, we have proven it can be done. […] This milestone represents a tipping point. To meet the scale required by 2050, we need exponential growth, not linear solutions. Being able to verify credits against a third-party standard unlocks that scaling.”

~ Dr. Matthew Clarkson, Head of Carbon at InPlanet ~

1PointFive

Stratos, a large C02 collection facility partly under construction in a rural part of Texas

Image: STRATOS under construction. Photo courtesy of 1PointFive

1PointFive is building STRATOS – the world’s largest facility of its kind in Texas – designed to remove up to 500,000 tonnes of CO₂ annually from the atmosphere. As the first plant capable of reaching megatonne scale, STRATOS represents a crucial breakthrough in engineered carbon removal technology. The captured CO₂ is permanently stored deep underground through secure geologic sequestration, providing durable climate solutions for hard-to-decarbonise industries.

It’s Not Easy Being Green

Outside Shakespeare's Globe, the artwork Grace on Waste where a girl collects recyclables in a landfill is displayed on a lampost.

Grace on Waste (2024), Muhammad Amdad Hossain. The Gallery, Season 5, 2025. Produced by Artichoke. Photo by Yves Salmon

We’re delighted that this season of The Gallery has achieved meaningful cultural impact while staying environmentally responsible. Stark images like Grace on Waste, by Muhammad Amdad Hossain, expose the harsh reality of environmental injustice and poor waste management systems, reminding us why the work of companies like our carbon removal partners is so vital.

The Next Generation of Climate Artists

A tutor conversates with students in a classroom A tutor explains art techniques to students in a classroom.

L&P Workshops as part of The Gallery, Season 5, 2025. Rio De Janiero & Brazil. Produced by Artichoke. Photos by Juliana Colianas and Beth King

The Gallery, Season 5 is far from over. As part of The Gallery’s Learning & Participation programme, 60 students from four schools across the UK and Brazil are designing artworks that will be displayed on billboards in both countries in March 2026. Local artists are guiding students through personal reflection and creative exploration of the theme.

The students are coming together via online exchanges to share their ideas and creations while reflecting on how culture and local context influence their perspectives on climate change. This international collaboration embodies the spirit of International Day of Clean Energy, bringing together diverse voices to address our shared environmental challenges.

By combining powerful art with meaningful climate action, The Gallery, Season 5 demonstrates that cultural institutions can lead by example, inspiring audiences while taking concrete steps toward a more sustainable future.

Discover more about It’s Not Easy Being Green via thegallery.org.uk

Learn more about International Day of Clean Energy and how you can take action at un.org/en/observances/clean-energy-day