Environment Shows at Edinburgh Festivals - Aug 2026
The busiest time of year in the capital of Scotland is almost upon us, and the excitement is palpable. Throughout August, Edinburgh welcomes people to experience the magic of the numerous festivals taking place across the city. The streets, theatres and galleries come alive with performances, shows, talks and exhibitions during one of the largest cultural celebrations worldwide.
For those of you looking to be immersed in the world of arts and sustainability, we’ve compiled a list of shows that share the themes of the environment, climate change, climate anxiety, and much more. From hopeful, immersive or experimental plays and imagined science fiction futures, to insightful book talks by recently published authors, there’s something for everyone - from Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Edinburgh Art Festival, Edinburgh International Book Festival, and Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Show/Exhibitons/Events
1: We’re all aware of the environmental cost of using fossil fuels to power our lives, but the human and cultural impact is arguably just as damaging and in this event investigative journalist Alex Perry and New Yorker writer Nicolas Niarchos illuminate the dark underbelly of the oil industry and the bloody history of cobalt.
2. Stuart Goldsmith was as scared about the climate crisis as you are. But he did the reading, and now he's terrified. Come and watch him do something about it, in his most honest, hilarious, and hopeful hour yet - Canary.
2. Abundant Parts is a newly commissioned installation by Esther Castle, an other-worldly garden which draws symbolic connections between the non-normative body and weeds, often considered an undesirable presence and removed by gardeners. The installation includes surreal elements, indicating a state of slippage relevant to both a failure of our bodies’ defence systems and the gardener’s futile attempt to control and contain the natural world.
3. Much Ado About Climate. Shakespearean tropes. Climate breakdown. One unpredictable hour of improv. This isn’t your standard improv show. This isn't your traditional play about climate change, either. This is an audience-led improvised performance where a collision of original characters, born from Shakespeare's most enduring archetypes, must navigate the pressures of a rapidly changing world.
4. Step into the shoes of the most consequential man you’ve maybe never heard of. Award-winning historian Andrea Wulf talks about The Traveller: The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and his Search for Humanity, recounting the young naturalist who journeyed to the far reaches of the known world on Captain Cook’s second voyage.
5. With Chai, Samosa and Climate Gupshup, NKS aims to deliver a heartfelt message about climate change and hopes to inspire community awareness and to encourage positive behavioural change around climate. Focusing on global food waste in a South Asian family setting, the play highlights how reducing food waste and lowering our carbon footprint can begin with simple, mindful actions within our homes, kitchens, schools, shops and communities.
7. What does it mean to bring tender attention to our encounters with nature? Join artist Brigid Collins and poet Christine De Luca as they unfold their year-long creative collaboration in Dr Neil’s Garden beside Edinburgh’s Duddingston Loch. With readings from Such Fragile Futures: An Artist and a Poet Reflect in a Garden, and artworks so sensuous you want to reach out and touch them, discover how humans might begin healing our world.
8. At Summerhall, environmental artist Ryo Yamada presents a site-specific installation demonstrating future sea levels within Summerhall’s in Vitro Gallery. A delicately constructed architectural experience, In Vitro / Zero Metre Above Sea Level invites us to consider environmental change.
9. In Ibsen's groundbreaking 1882 play, An Enemy of the People, protagonist Thomas Stockmann faces shame and exile after attempting to expose a water pollution scandal in his hometown. More than a century later, visionary Brazilian director Christiane Jatahy brings her radical sequel A Trial to Edinburgh featuring Oscar-nominated actor Wagner Moura.
10. Where We Choose To Stand is an ambitious dance-theatre work inspired by climate activism amid political upheaval. Embedded in Nicolette Macleod's evocative soundscape are first-hand accounts from people from across the UK who have been involved in direct action, amplifying the voices of those often silenced for their actions.
11. Katie Paterson: Afterlife is a sculptural installation comprised of nearly 200 amulets. Each amulet is created with materials sourced from endangered landscapes and fragile ecosystems, exploring themes of deep time, geology, and the environment. Drawing on centuries of cultural and spiritual traditions, Afterlife prompts us to reflect on the fragility of the natural world today.
12. Climate signals, ice quakes and earth history from leading scientists inspiring innovative music, stunning animation and beautiful images of Antarctica's ice sheet. The Song of the Ice is a personal response to polar history and environmental change
13. In our insatiable pursuit of economic growth, modern civilisation has upended the planet; our relentless extraction of resources has created environmental and social carnage. Discussing his incisive new book, The Vanishing Earth, acclaimed historian, writer, and BBC Radio 4’s Take Four Books presenter James Crawford exposes the cost of endless growth on our planet and the essential actions that could save it.
14. Grasslands is a major exhibition by Kate Downie combining drawing, experimental printmaking, painting, and film, inspired by close observation of Scotland’s diverse grassland environments and focusing on the often overlooked, revealing the complexity and resilience of grasses; grass is everywhere, its roots binding the land together.
15. Thom Lunshof’s haunting and gripping feature debut First Zone tells the story of a woman navigating a flooded and desolate post-apocalyptic landscape. Living out existence in an abandoned wind turbine high above an endless ocean, ultra tough Fenna has become used to surviving alone in the aftermath of a climate catastrophe. But when a violent storm separates her from home, she embarks on an odyssey across the vast wetlands of a post-apocalyptic landscape.
16. In Earth Matters, over 30 artists delve into soil to reveal its brilliance, beauty, and fragility, celebrating the 300th birthday of ‘the father of modern geology’, James Hutton. Recognised for his radical exploration of the ground beneath us, Hutton was an Edinburgh-born geologist, farmer and writer who revolutionised our understanding of Earth’s creation.
17. Charting the course of one all-too-possible 21st-century life, Ruth Gilligan's thrilling, audacious, new play We Love and Then We Drown encourages us to think the unthinkable: to save the world as we know it, how much are we each prepared to sacrifice – not just for ourselves, but for those we love?
18. Around A Tree is a site for gathering, dialogue, and exchange, created by Colombian foundation Más Arte Más Acción. The table, which has travelled globally in many forms, invites visitors to pause, reflect, and engage with pressing conversations on the climate crisis. Surrounding a Portuguese Oak sapling, the table is made from a 164-year-old Lebanese Cedar felled in the Garden due to needle blight, embodying climate resilience.
This is just a selection of the hundreds of shows taking place across our many festivals in August which touch on some of the most important issues facing our place, our people and our planet. We invite you to join us in 2026 and discover a world of extraordinary experiences.
Image Credits: NKS, Kate Downie and Más Arte Más Acción