My Conscious Budget Tool: A Sustainability Calculator for Costume Artists
It’s Measurement May! At the start of this month, we declared this impromptu observance celebration as an opportunity for all of us to think about all the ways we measure success, and impact, in our creative process. As the industry finally shifts towards more sustainable practices, costume designers must consider the ethical and environmental implications of their decisions. If we do not measure it, we cannot improve it.
We already measure the costs and hours that go into a production so we can plan and set goals for future shows and seasons; we measure performers, fabric, trims, and more. It’s time for us to find a way to measure the environmental and ethical impact of our art. Adding an impact calculator could be an easy and logical next step for those who are already responsible for keeping records, managing budgets, and planning labor hours. Seeing the need for a free, accessible, and nuanced measurement tool, I created My Conscious Budget to advocate for accounting for these factors in a comprehensive measurement system that responds to the broad range of sustainable decisions by dividing all purchases into two categories: conventional sources and conscious choices.
Costumes are one of the most difficult areas of a production to measure impact because the garment and textile industries are notoriously opaque. Additionally, our purchasing choices are dependent on the script, budget and other design limitations. Recognizing these challenges, I designed the My Conscious Budget measurement system so that you can measure your impact from one design to another because you're measuring the intention of the decisions, not just a one dimensional measurement system like carbon or water.
The core inspiration behind the My Conscious Budget system is that I was looking for a way that I could understand the impact of my choices, and also clearly see the ways that I could improve my process, and shape future choices to be more ethical and sustainable. Measuring our impact is dependent on what's available on the market and the information that brands are giving, and unfortunately the fashion and textile industries lack the necessary transparency. This system responds to the nuance and complication of design purchasing decisions based on manufacturing practices and vendor type by breaking every purchase into two possible categories: Conscious (organic, Fair Trade, thrifted, rented, etc…) and Conventional (large retailer, polyester, single use, etc…).
My Conscious Budget is designed to be both simple to use, and responsive to the nature of our productions. When you're designing scrappy sci-fi one minute, low budget slice of life 1960s the next, and high budget glamorous 1930s the next, it's nearly impossible to compare those things one to one. By using My Conscious Budget, we are focused on a percentage of budget spend so you can actually compare these productions relative to each other, and your process trends overall. For example, conscious sources for the slice of life 1960s piece; we're going to focus on renting and buying vintage. Whereas the sci-fi piece could prioritize upcycling and using stretch synthetic materials made of recycled plastic. These two vastly different productions can now be compared based on the percentage of each budget that goes to the conscious choices.
Another benefit of this system is it allows each designer or company to set goals for what percentage of a show’s budget will go to conscious purchases. I recommend calculating a baseline measure before you set a goal. To do so, you should calculate out your My Conscious Budget percentage for your last five shows. Let’s say you do this, and see that you’re at 20% conscious sources. It would be smart to set yourself a target for your next five shows at 30% and then go incrementally up from there, re-establishing your “baseline” Conscious Budget “Score” every year or so.
You’ll see in the examples that I published that Street Scene (large scale, period, university funded opera) had 45.04% conscious sources compared to Be More Chill (large cast, contemporary musical, small non-profit theatre company) had 87.8% conscious sources. Later this month, I will post a full recording of my 2021 USITT poster presentation explaining this in more detail.
Besides the My Conscious Budget system, there are many calculators for measuring your impact available online. These are generally geared for an individual person to measure their impact in everyday, rather than geared towards theatre, but they are insightful nonetheless:
There are also calculators for productions, I’ve not found these useful to measure an individual design but they would be excellent to measure a full season, festival, etc…
Julie’s Bicycle (UK based)
You’ll see that it’s difficult to apply these calculators to costume work. This is why I focus on the effort we put in to consciously choose to buy from a small business: rent this instead of build, or use organic cotton instead of conventional cotton. It is recognizing the impact our art has on people and the planet and building a relationship with that impact.
