ROKBOX Sustainability Statement 2026

The world is facing a series of linked environmental crises. In October 2022, the UN warned that the world’s governments are not yet on track to keep global heating below 1.5 degrees, and the window for action is rapidly closing. We are already seeing the impacts of existing warming with devastating droughts, storms and floods across the world. Related crises include collapsing biodiversity, dangerous levels of air pollution, and plastic contamination in our rivers and oceans. Without urgent action from across society, these problems will rapidly escalate.

The art world has an important role to play. Arts organisations – particularly in the Global North – have a disproportionately large impact on the environment, mainly due to a great deal of international travel, arts shipping, and high use of energy and materials. We need to act urgently to reduce these impacts in line with what science is telling us. As arts organisations, we also have an opportunity to use our public platform and cultural influence to set a positive example, encouraging and supporting others to take action and helping shift the public debate.

At ROKBOX, our values and mission are to provide sustainable art crating options to enable the art world to ship art safely and cost-effectively, whilst minimising the impact on the environment.

We provide a sustainable packaging service to art world participants. Offering robust and resilient crates that are lighter than equivalent wooden crates, the carbon footprint of a ROKBOX crate is 92% less than a single-use wooden crate. Our environmental impact is analysed in a new 2025 LifeCycle Analysis, an expansion on our original 2022 LifeCycle Analysis  

ROKBOX continues to develop our product offerings to continually improve and reduce our carbon footprint. Including introducing our LiteHD crate; offering a lightweight but heavy duty and durable upgrade to the original Lite product. This new crate also incorporates 15% recycled ocean plastic as part of our dedication to overall environmental sustainability and circularity.

As an organisation, our main direct environmental impacts include manufacture and production, along with shipment of products in our sales and rental system. We have committed to tackling these impacts by:

• Joining the Gallery Climate Coalition, and pledging to at least halve our carbon emissions by 2030, from a 2019 baseline.
• Regularly calculating the carbon footprint of our operations, to track progress towards this target.
• Fostering our industry wide collaborations and partnerships including with Frieze and insurance providers to broaden the reach of our sustainability research and mission.
• Setting specific targets for the major parts of our footprint, including:
  • Ensuring the majority of our international shipping is carried out by sea, rail or road rather than air by 2028. 
  • Balancing our emissions with the carbon reduction enabled by our products.
• The actions we are taking to meet these targets include:
  • Rolling out our LiteHD crate into our sales and rental network.
  • Developing our 3D reusable crate to expand the reach of our offerings and increase sustainability shipments.
  • Speaking to our shippers about alternatives to air freight. Specifically incentivising sea-freight consolidated shipments and road shuttle journeys.
  • Encouraging clients to choose to ship via sea freight over air freight. Including implementing an opt-out system of carbon offsetting donations based on the carbon footprint of deliveries.
  • Using only low or zero emissions vehicles for local deliveries.
  • Implementing our staff travel policies and practices, and planning our attendance at international events to reduce the need for air travel.
  • Working with other GCC members on projects to help develop more sustainable packaging, transport and energy saving solutions for the whole sector.
  • Maintaining a Green Team with representatives from different parts of the organisation, that meets to track progress on all of these targets and actions at least once a month.
  • Undertaking an impact survey in 2026.

Following guidance from the Gallery Climate Coalition we are implementing a new opt-out policy for donations to a Strategic Climate Fund on all sales orders. From Spring 2025 we have encouraged a standardised donation of £50 to ClientEarth per tonne of carbon emitted in each sales order, giving the customer  freedom to opt-out. For our rental orders, we donate £1 per rental to ClientEarth. These donations will be spent on supporting frontline climate solutions around the world that are making a difference right now. We aim to act in line with the principles of climate justice, recognising the connections between the climate crisis and other global injustices. We want our environmental actions to support – rather than undermine or ignore – the needs of people on the frontlines of marginalisation and injustice.

We have set these targets and are acting in the knowledge that we still have a great deal to do and much to learn. We welcome feedback from our clients on this environmental statement, our targets, and our action plans.

Signed,
The ROKBOX Team

April 2026