In November 2016, Regen SW introduced the first ever Arts and Green Energy Award as part of its prestigious annual Green Energy Awards, supported by the Institution of Civil Engineers.
For over a decade, the Awards had celebrated innovation and leadership in renewable energy. With this new category, Regen took a bold step: recognising that creativity and culture are also central to the transition to a low-carbon future.
The £1000 prize was designed to highlight the crucial role artists and creative practitioners play in challenging, deepening, and broadening the energy debate.
The inaugural award went to Active Energy, a project led by artist Loraine Leeson with The Geezers, a seniors’ group from Tower Hamlets, East London.
Over several years, the group had:
Active Energy demonstrated how socially engaged art can empower communities to address energy challenges, build intergenerational bridges, and influence local policy.
Together, the shortlist showed the diverse spectrum of arts and energy practice: from micro-scale grassroots initiatives to large collaborative programmes.
Awards like this are not just symbolic. They:
By including an Arts and Energy category, Regen sent a clear signal to the industry: creativity is part of the solution.
The Arts and Green Energy Award helped to seed Regen’s growing arts and energy programme, paving the way for later collaborations such as The Element in the Room, Feast for the Future, and We Are All People of Power.
It also demonstrated to funders, policymakers, and practitioners that supporting arts-based energy projects is not a diversion from the “real work” of decarbonisation — it is one of the most effective ways to connect people, imagination, and action.
“We hope this award will raise awareness of arts and energy practice and the opportunities that these projects present across the sustainable energy sector.” – Regen, 2016
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