Sustainability

Liste Art Fair Basel acknowledges the urgent need for action in relation to the global climate crisis and we see it as our duty to take responsibility in relation to social, environmental and economic issues and to make conscious contributions to sustainability efforts. With this in mind, we are working intensively to improve our ecological footprint. Aware that we still have a lot to learn and many more steps to take, we are working to communicate our goals, plans and actions in a transparent way.

Liste as an art fair

Liste Art Fair Basel is a member of the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC), an international network of art organisations committed to reducing the industry's environmental impact.

As an international art fair, we use our public platform and cultural influence to encourage and help support others to find ways to take action. We share our knowledge and solutions for a more climate-friendly fair with our visitors and exhibitors via newsletters and on our website. We have also created sustainability guidelines for exhibitors and are continuing to research additional ways to help their participation become more environmentally conscious.

Location and infrastructure

Liste Art Fair Basel has been held in Hall 1.1 of Messe Basel since 2021. At this location, electricity is supplied by the Industriellen Werke Basel (IWB), which obtains 100% of its power from renewable energy sources, primarily Swiss hydropower. In addition, photovoltaic systems on the roofs of Messe Basel produce more than 1,200,000 kWh of electricity a year, an amount that covers the needs of around 300 four-person households.

Via IWB, also our office is powered by electricity sourced exclusively from renewable energy sources.

Swisscom, our internet and telephone provider, has set itself the goal of becoming a completely climate-neutral company by 2025. Everything about Swisscom’s sustainability goals and what has been achieved so far can be found here.

Liste team

Starting now, the greenhouse gas emissions generated from a Liste team member’s air travel for business trips will be offset by providing the equivalent amount of support to climate protection projects via atmosfair.

Resource conservation

Since 2023, public water stations are available in the Liste fair hall to fill reusable water bottles. We ask our exhibitors, staff members and visitors to bring their own bottles.

In 2023, we transitioned to a more sustainable signage solution. Instead of a disposable adhesive film, the signage is now primarily made of reusable textile materials. Moreover, the Liste construction team is committed to using materials carefully and reusing as much as possible each year. From 2023 onwards, building materials and other items that are no longer needed will be given away via reuse platforms.

In 2021, Liste stopped producing a printed fair catalogue. Instead, Liste Showtime Online, the digital edition of the fair, and Liste Expedition Online, an online platform for research, offer another form of insight into the artistic positions shown at Liste Art Fair Basel.

Catering

For catering, Liste always relies on regional suppliers. 

Astro Fries will be selling their hand-cut fries made from regional potatoes and served with a variety toppings at Liste. The Basel French-fries joint recycles their waste oil as biodiesel.

Every day Kuni & Gunde will be offering fresh, colorful open-faced sandwiches prepared with regional vegetables and meat sourced from Baselland. Their production site in Basel near the exhibition hall ensures a short delivery route, thus keeping CO2 emissions low.

Partners

Wherever possible, Liste works with partner companies that practice sustainable and fair production methods.

BWT provides fresh drinking water during Liste Art Fair Basel. Their mission is the development and distribution of water treatment products and services. They thus contribute to using water locally and conserving the resources of our planet.

Our annual Liste bag is sponsored by Carhartt WIP. The bags are sewn from organic fabric in Portugal and are coloured and printed in Germany by PROMOLUCHS e.K. using eco-friendly dye. As a company, Carhartt WIP acts according to their Corporate Responsibility statement, which includes ecology and social issues.

The soap at the fair is provided by Soeder, a collective that produces sustainable, all-natural everyday care products at their own factory in Zurich.

Our printed paper products are provided by the Basel-based and FSC-certified printing company Steudler Press, which has a climate neutral production process that is carried out with 100% renewable energy. Since 2023, we give surplus print products back to Steudler Press for recycling. Further information on sustain-ability at Steudler Press can be found here. 

Why we need to act

Global warming is progressing rapidly. In March 2023, the temperature of Earth has risen by 1.1 degrees compared to the pre-industrial era. The effects are already being felt: extreme weather, including major droughts, storms and floods, around the world are causing immense damage, costing human lives, endangering biodiversity and depleting drinking water. Some regions of the world, due to climate change, will become uninhabitable; and in most cases, those least responsible for climate change will be those most affected. According to the latest findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the goal of capping global warming at 1.5–2 degrees, which was agreed upon in 2015 within the framework of the Paris Climate Agreement, cannot be achieved with the political measures that have been adopted thus far. Together as humanity, we must act urgently, because every additional tenth of a degree can lead to irreversible changes. (Source: Sixth Assessment Report of the IPCC, published in March 2023)

Arts organisations, particularly those in the Global North, have a disproportionately large impact on the environment. We have to acknowledge this and take actions to change it.

The aim of Liste Art Fair Basel, founded in 1996, is to present a younger generation of galleries and artists who represent the latest developments and trends in contemporary art every year in Basel. For art professionals as well as for all those interested in art who gather in Basel from all over the world, Liste is known as a place to discover international artistic positions that not only deal with the present but also create it – with new aesthetics, media and values. In order to do this justice, we as Liste must acknowledge and accept that all those involved are affected by the climate crisis to varying degrees and that we have a responsibility to help limit the damage we inflict.