The interactive online Landmark Seminar “Artists, Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility: How businesses and the arts collaborate for an environmentally sustainable future” focused on theoretical discourses and practices in Bulgaria, Greece and other countries, related to CSR, environmental sustainability and the arts. The seminar is part of EMPACT project, co-financed by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Commission. It was held on 30 November 2022 online and was attended by over 60 participants throughout the day: postgraduate students from NATFA and other universities, arts and cultural managers and experts, representatives from cultural and educational networks, academia and researchers in the field of culture and creative industries, sustainability and CSR, representatives of EMPACT project partners. Seminar speakers were distinguished experts, educators and practitioners in the field: Prof. Dr. Lidia Varbanova, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Marina Stevanova, Myrto Voreakou, Elitsa Barakova, Simeon Vasilev and Ekaterina Ancheva.

In the feedback questionnaire about the seminar, participants showed a high level of overall satisfaction – 80% of the respondents rated the seminar as “very good” and 19.4% as “good”. The majority of the participants expressed their satisfaction with the program content and design; structure of the sessions; competence and knowledge of the invited speakers; the combination of theoretical concepts and practical examples; interactivity of the seminar, readings provided before and after the seminar: seminar logistics, and timing. Here are some other quotes from the participants’ feedback (kept anonymous):

• “The topic is really interesting. But the thing I liked the most was the way the speakers spoke by heart about the topic and the things in life connected to corporate social responsibility and sustainability.”
• I enjoyed the professionalism of the speaker and the accessible content he introduced us to. I gained a lot of useful knowledge and skills that will improve my work.”
• “The seminar showed me a new perspective of the responsibility of the artist for the future.”
• “The structure of the seminar and its interactive features were very interesting to me, as well as the open and friendly atmosphere which the speakers set up.”

The majority of participants advised that seminars on similar topics continuing in the future, and shared an opinion that more time is required to go deeper into the subject matter and that a continuation with offline sessions would be very beneficial.

Read more about EMPACT project here: https://natfiz.bg/en/empact-project/