Broto: Art-Climate-Science

Ian Edwards (MBA, Sustainability)  is the Executive Director of The Cape Cod Center for Sustainability (CCCS), a 501( c) (3) organization based in Provincetown, Massachusetts, USA. CCCS is dedicated to multidisciplinary art-science approaches to the climate crisis, among other programs related to the  “What’s Next In Sustainability?” mission.  

Previously, as a strategic consultant in Canada and the US, he worked with organizations such as The United Nations and IKEA to implement sustainability and social justice programs.

Under Ian’s leadership, the long-standing, Cape Cod-based CCCS has been remade with its signature conference - Broto: Art-Climate-Science. Broto is a unique and unaffiliated creative conference that puts into action “substantive, real-time, credible and mutual” art-science collaborations addressing the climate crisis.

Broto is now in its third year, having produced two in-person conferences, one online conference (with another scheduled for Nov. 2020) and grown the global community to 500+ supporters in 30 countries.

The Broto Art-Climate-Science conference iis focussed on urgent, global  innovation addressing the climate crisis. 

We actively work in under explored areas of sustainability -- like  Scale, Deep Time and Future Generations -- and we investigate the hypothesis that art, art-thinking and art-distribution comprise a last, best channel for amplifying climate science. Where government, corporations, advocacy and religion have faltered in driving climate action at scale, art is an opportunity.

Through multidisciplinary conversations and collaborations, Broto seeks to elevate the human response to the climate crisis and pivot us  from the status quo mainstream toward a future that is viable for this generation and future generations.  

Heading into our fourth conference in Nov. 2020, Broto has a community of 500+ people in 30 countries rallying around Broto’s  collaborative model designed to bring big thinkers together -- concerned  people  who would not normally be in the same room.

As a species, humans are stuck on how to innovate an effective, global response to human-accelerated climate change. Government, corporations, advocates and religion have not provided either the leadership to  produce an effective, urgent, future-focussed strategy to reduce or reverse the climate threat. Art is an untapped opportunity -- unbounded by national borders or politics or convention. 

Art-Science collaboration, pointed at climate change issues, is already giving us new ideas and Broto: Art-Climate-Science is providing a global platform for “climate hope.”

Extreme weather, migrating disease, fires and floods of increasing frequency and ferocity -- are affecting communities all over the world: from the deltas of Bangladesh, to the vanishing coastline of Louisiana and Vanuatu, to the shrinking ice of Greenland, to new only a few. Our home base of Cape Cod, Mass., a region historically rich in both art and science,  is uniquely vulnerable to the changing climate, encroaching seas and the threat of a Cat 6 hurricane.

Broto has a community that spans 30 countries and counting. 60% of our audience comprises artists who bring real value to scientific inquiry, through new points of view, complementary and additive process, inventive interpretation of data and a talent for communication.

Broto: Art-Climate-Science is a conference and global community of engaged multidisciplinary experts collaborating on our collective response to the climate crisis. We use substantive, real-time, mutual and credible art-science collaboration as a catalyst for innovation. 

As a program of the Cape Cod Center for Sustainability, Broto has convened three conferences since 2018 and has a fourth conference scheduled for November 2020. By tackling under-explored aspects of sustainability -- like scale, deep time and future generations -- we’ve built a community of 500 people in 30 countries (at last count). We’re engaging multidisciplinary experts in highly creative and collaborative conversation and work to stimulate new ideas to get us “unstuck” on the climate crisis.

Each conference features a program of talks, panels and presentations from art, science and other disciplines to inspire larger conversations, collaborative work, white papers, media and other outputs from bringing together engaged people who would not normally work together.

As an example of our focus, the fourth conference in November 2020 is about designing better Nature-Society affinity through expansive conversations about economics and ways to reframe the  Anthropocene Age to be about “Interaction, not extraction” of nature.

Broto’s community of collaborators includes planetologists, poets, sci-fi authors, geologists, ecologists, sustainability strategists, economists, visual artists, environmentalists, health care advocates, dancers, green tech entrepreneurs, filmmakers, philosophers, advocates and others. 60% of our community comprises artists.

Our upcoming summit on AFFINITY is designed, in part, to attract business and government perspectives into our conversations for the benefit of new policy (especially social and environmental justice policy)  and action at coordinated, global scale. We also work to engage youth in our work to address the intergenerational issues of the climate crisis.

The immediate benefit is to scientists and artists looking for collaborators, new ideas and ways to increase funding opportunities through multidisciplinary approaches. The longer-term benefit could be global, but our focus is on the process of catalyzing new climate ideas with the potential for global remedies.

If there is one global, existential threat, it’s human-accelerated climate change. If there is one global issue that lacks an adequate, coordinated and effective response, it’s human-accelerated climate change. Broto is about elevating art as an equal partner to science as a catalyzing force for climate innovation. We’re about engaging a multidisciplinary community of experts -- people who might not otherwise interact -- in tackling underexplored aspects of sustainability like scale or future generations. Where other channels like the government or corporations have failed to achieve climate remedies at scale, art-informed climate science is an opportunity not to be overlooked.

In 2015, the Paris Accord offered the promise of a new global climate strategy. Provincetown, MA -- to  where Executive Director Ian Edwards had newly moved to “live some values” -- was represented in the Paris discussions by the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown. CEO Rich Delaney had returned from Paris hopeful for change. In a meeting with Ian, he expressed interest in how a partnership with the Provincetown Art Association & Museum might work. Inspired by that idea, Ian worked to broker an agreement with the science and art organizations to host a conference about art-science collaboration and climate change. That was the initial spark. By 2018, Broto was hosting its first in-person conference in Provincetown and has evolved from there to become a unique, unaffiliated, global creative collaboration conference and community. Broto was the program that rebooted The Cape Cod Center for Sustainability, and we have through that non-profit grown and produced the collaboration conference through a second in person conference in 2019 and, in the COVID-era, our first online conference in May  2020. Our fourth conference, again online, is already booked for November 2020.

As founder of Broto: Art-Climate-Science, Ian Edwards believes that art, art-thinking and art-distribution comprise the last, best channel for activating climate science at scale. After years working on sustainability strategies for government and corporations, with unknown benefits to nature, art-science collaboration offered an exciting new and creative avenue to explore. The climate remains an existential threat for both this and future generations. We live in a world of science denial, where art is a distraction. Broto has evolved to promote the idea that art is a vector for environmental success and a worthy partner of climate science -- even to catalyze effective change. While this is a global pursuit and a long game for effective change, it has immediate implications for our home base in Provincetown, Mass on Cape Cod. Cape Cod is a region that a) has a rich history in both art and science and b) is uniquely vulnerable to the extreme weather, migrating disease and rising tides made more dangerous by a broken climate. Additionally, Broto has been fortunate to engage “really big thinkers” who bring an amazing energy to the Broto quest.

Broto: Art-Climate-Science has already produced three annual conferences and is presently ramping up the frequency of its next conferences. The executive director has a global background in sustainability strategy and an MBA on the subject. Broto has innovated its own collaboration model and, with the support of an advisory board and, additionally,  a dedicated board of directors, continues to mine under-explored aspects of the climate crisis through an innovative art-science lens. We are pioneering in what’s known as the Third Paradise (Michaelangelo Pistoletto, 2007), and crowd-sourcing through our global community of multidisciplinary experts a collaborative approach and blended art-sci process. While art-sci collaboration has been a long-standing idea, we know of no other initiative with this type of collaborative focus and substantive approach.

• Creatively, creating a collaboration model that silences critics of the process has been one challenge overcome. Since our inception, we’ve battled against the expectation that our initiative is trivial lipservice to collaboration rather than the substantive, real-time and credible partnership of art-science that has evolved. Our rapidly expanding global community provides evidence that we are onto something meaningful.

• Logistically, we had to convert from an in-person conference to a 100% online conference in just six weeks early in this year because of the onset of COVID-19. Rather than giving up, we rallied and reinvented and put on a conference that a) captured the sizzle of an in-person conference and b) grew our audience by 10x, introducing us to people all over the world in 30 countries. Virtual conference delivery was always in our DNA as a sustainability conference, but COVID pushed us to embrace that future now. It’s successful enough as a new model to book a second 2020 conference, scheduled in November 2020.

Broto: Art-Climate-Science came from a singular vision for Executive Director Ian Edwards, that built on an earlier career of sustainability consulting. Once he dug in, he always knew there was a potential for art and science to transcend the mire of climate inaction. With no track record and only a pitch, he forged early connections with experts in art and science that built the network that is now Broto -- people who have been attending the conference and contributing to the community since our first event in 2018. Keeping the Broto program relevant and engaging and substantive is his focus so that a long-term gain can be realized through his unique collaboration model.

Look up Michaelangelo Pistoletto and his theory related to the “Third Paradise” -- where art and science, in effect, blend. Broto: Art-Climate-Science (“climate surrounded by art and science”) works to put that into practice as a source for innovation for the climate. What can art and science do in “substantive, real-time, credible and mutual” collaboration that has yet to be done? What creative leap in artistic and scientific inquiry are we overlooking because they don’t, so far, work as equals. Can art -- as a last, best channel for amplifying climate science --  make science more robust? Sustainability lacks imagination and an end-game. Broto is about leapfrogging to ideas that are unbounded by national borders or politics. Consider how art travels the world through tours, streaming, distribution, social media and how that model might make an impact on climate. By engaging multidisciplinary thinkers -- people who might not otherwise know each other as colleagues -- we’re working toward new ideas of scale, time, natural capital, future generations and the very core of real collaboration. If we can disrupt the sustainability status quo then we can elevate ideas of real “climate hope.”

Broto’s Theory of Change is that art can provide the last, best channel for planet-scale climate science. Where government, corporations, advocacy and religion have faltered in shifting the climate status quo, art is an untapped partner. We’ve created a “collaboration blueprint” that elevates art to be an equal partner to science in these partnerships. We believe that art can inform science. We’ve engaged multidisciplinary experts in regular conference-style conversations to explore ways to envision a sustainability endgame, where we are thriving in our partnership with nature, not just surviving. We create whitepapers, art exhibits -- all focussed on building awareness of the lesser-explored aspects of sustainability, like collaboration, scale, time and the nature-society affinity. We put experts who would not normally work together in the same room to foster innovation and new ideas. Our goal is to put effective collaboration into action and we’ve pointed those efforts at the climate crisis. If we are to change the expected outcome of that crisis, we need to intervene with a change agent like art, art thinking and art distribution that is unfettered by policies, borders or commercial interests.

Current: 500

One Year: 1,000

Five Years 5,000

In the next year: Expand our current conversation with experts through conference content, art exhibits, articles and white papers and media.

In the next five years: Commission art-science collaborations for climate, showcase Broto-minted, new initiatives in the field, host large scale creative conferences, and become the Davos of Climate Change.

Our key barrier is financial. We rely on regional funding from grantors and donors and we need to increase revenues to build our infrastructure and content offerings. Presently, we have a very small operation, reflecting our funding and our conference content is offered for free to maximize participation.

Fundraising: We have expanded our outreach to grantors and donors, continue to cultivate relationships, and produce content that is worthy of a new donor’s attention. Fundraising is a long game and we could use early-stage funding that would help speed that initiative.

501c3 non profit organization

We are financially stable, just not at the scale we need to make more impact. Fundraising is a 24/7 task and we have begun to expand our outreaching to foundations and other grant-makers for sustaining, larger contributions. Private donors are a large part of our revenue and we work to cultivate and grow those relationships. Our content and our unique offering is our selling point to funders who see our potential and value and focus on climate success. We will expand our infrastructure with more funding vs. take on debt.

We are quite traditional in our financial model and revenue capture.

Grantor support -- Foundations and grant-making organizations provide about 50% of our revenues. Funders include The Palette Fund, Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, Provincetown Economic Development, Tourism and Cultural Council committees.

Event and social media fundraising -- We rely less on “Party PR” fundraising at this point, but do the occasional web-based appeal

Private donors -- We have a few very supportive private donors who return annually with larger contributions 

Ticketing --  A sister program for Broto has been a great source for ticket sales, but that is now a question mark in the era of COVID. Broto, itself, is offered for free.

Merchandise -- Licensing and merchandise are a small portion of our revenue.

While we have a growth plan that includes more paid staff and added programming, COVID has dampened that timeline. We operate in the black without debt and within our revenue results.