By Sarah Pickthall
Sustainable: of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged.
A commitment to sustainability requires us to use and renew energy and resources with increased awareness and understanding of their intrinsic value – including scarcity, production methods and renewability – and to do this with respect.
Our survey and roundtables in 2024 showed that disabled music creatives’ awareness and understanding about climate sustainability was varied. But it also showed that there is a genuine desire to find out more, and do more in response while still sustaining themselves in the process.
Sustainable for the planet, sustainability for disabled people
“I think the key to solving climate crisis is intertwined with community care and disability rights and justice.“
Disabled music creatives need to start, and to be part of, a debate that seeks to ensure that they are not too depleted or permanently damaged within a music industry culture that is often about working oneself into the ground. Attitude is Everything has initiated this debate.
“It’s not good for anyone to tour back-to-back, it would be better for human welfare as well as the planet to do less and focus less on productivity.“
We know that disabled music creatives face additional barriers. There is still a pressing need to develop and broker understanding as to the diversity of just what these barriers are and how these additionally impact on a professional career:
“Too often disabled musicians are only thought to have access requirements relating to their physicality, rather than hidden aspects of their disability, their mental health, their energy or need for self-regulation which are often things that are so much more pressing.“
Energy, pain and fatigue, particularly in the aftermath of Covid-19 are becoming more widely acknowledged and understood, yet they are still not always considered within the industry. Disabled music creatives have always known that they have to manage these things.
“I wouldn’t have any sort of career like I have had if I hadn’t had to pace and sustain myself.”