About / Going Green

With the launch of Artosphere: Arts & Nature Festival in 2010 Walton Arts Center also began an organization-wide sustainability effort.Our commitment to the quality of life in Northwest Arkansas is for the future as well as the present.

Throughout the Walton Arts Center, teams from all departments worked together to create and implement a variety of initiatives designed to save energy and resources:

• Lighting and controls upgrades for our facilities will reduce our CO2 emissions by over 500 metric tons per year and save an estimated $53,000 per year on our electricity bills. These savings result in a return on investment in less than four years.
• We have initiated policies in our offices and backstage to save money, energy, and resources through simple practices like turning off lights when not needed, adjusting thermostats, and printing on both sides of the paper when we have to print documents.
• Installing aerators in all of our public restrooms will reduce faucet water use by 75% without lessening the quality of our patrons' experience.
  
• Plastic water bottles are expensive compared to filtered water refills. They also use much more petroleum and other resources than refillable water bottles. We provide reusable water bottles both backstage and at off-site events, and we set up hydration stations for bottle refilling.
• We redesigned our concession program to reduce waste and offer greater variety to patrons.
• We have placed new recycling bins and signage throughout our performing arts center to make it more convenient for patrons to recycle.
• We have switched to chemical-free cleaning products, environmentally preferable or recycled supplies, and Forest Stewardship Council certified fibers for our tissue products.
• We have established a Sustainability Team to further develop our goals.
• We partnered with AmeriCorps and the National Center for Appropriate Technology to host an Energy Corps member to serve as our Sustainability Coordinator. Find more on this initiative in the sidebar at right.
• We are working with the Broadway Green Alliance to create a Green Certification for performing arts centers.

These initiatives mesh with our goal as an arts center to improve the overall quality of life in Northwest Arkansas now and for future generations.