A new European report, Creative Shifts: Empowering Culture for Sustainable Living, sheds light on the growing contribution of the cultural and creative sectors (CCS) to sustainability and climate action across the European Union.

The report is the result of work carried out in 2024 and 2025 by the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) group on the Green transition of the cultural and creative sectors, bringing together experts from EU Member States under the EU Work Plan for Culture 2023–2026. Co-chaired by representatives from the cultural and environmental fields, the group adopted a multi-layered methodology combining plenary discussions, expert input, thematic subgroups and targeted surveys.

The publication explores how culture, creativity and the arts can enable the mindset shifts required for a just, inclusive and equitable green transition. It highlights the unique capacity of the CCS to foster public awareness, encourage emotional engagement and inspire behavioural change, an often under-recognised potential in climate policy debates that have traditionally focused on sectors such as energy and transport.

Drawing on a wide range of European good practices, the report demonstrates that tangible environmental impact is already being achieved within the sector. Initiatives include energy-saving measures, climate adaptation strategies, circular practices and sustainable mobility solutions, showing that greening cultural operations is both feasible and effective.

At the same time, the report acknowledges the diversity of activities, skills and working contexts within the CCS, which results in uneven challenges across subsectors. Emerging assessments of the sector’s ecological footprint further underline the urgency of strengthening environmental practices.

To address these challenges, the report outlines a series of policy recommendations aimed at supporting the sector’s green transition. These include improving the use of existing tools and data for informed decision-making, scaling up proven good practices, stimulating action through targeted policies and institutional support, enhancing knowledge-sharing across Europe and better integrating culture into national and EU climate strategies.

By positioning culture as both a contributor to sustainability and a catalyst for societal change, Creative Shifts calls for more strategic and ambitious integration of the cultural and creative sectors into Europe’s climate action efforts.

The full report is available here.