“Museums can reduce their CO2 emissions by 70-80% within the next few years.” It was with these encouraging – but no less ambitious – words that Christian Baars, Head of Collections Care at National Museums Liverpool, opened the Green Museums Summit.
But where to start? And with what messages?
For many museums, aware of their influence and responsibility, environmental and climate issues are now part of their cultural project, but what means are they implementing to limit their negative impact?
In response to these questions, the Green Museum Summit provided food for thought by bringing together some thirty testimonials, including those from the Musée d’ethnographie de Genève (MEG), the Design Museum in London, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen, Germany, and the Turku Art Museum in Finland, who presented their approaches to going green.
Before discussing how cultural institutions can mobilize their audiences in the face of the climate crisis and environmental degradation, and contribute to an “encapacitating narrative”, let’s look at the different trajectories taken to implement a transition.
1. HOW TO IMPLEMENT AN ECO-RESPONSIBLE APPROACH? FEEDBACK FROM MEG, THE SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM IN NEW YORK, THE ZEPPELIN MUSEUM FRIEDRICHSHAFEN AND THE CLIMATE PROMISE PROJECT IN FINLAND
The Green Museums Summit was rich in testimonials on the steps taken to initiate an ecological transformation at different levels: at MEG, it was the development of a CSR policy that influenced programming and all operations; at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen, it was an exhibition that served as a pilot project; in Finland, it was the networking of institutions that initiated a transition.
The MEG, which aims to be a benchmark museum in terms of its CSR policy, has taken a step ahead by devising a vast 2020 – 2024 strategic plan for a sustainable and responsible museum based on four pillars: environmental, social, economic and societal, and for which the museum has been awarded the international THQSE (Très Haute Qualité Sociétale-Sociale-Sanitaire et Environnementale) GOLD label (its highest level of excellence). It is the first museum in Europe to be awarded the THQSE label, and the first in Switzerland. The museum’s cultural programming and outreach activities are based on the concrete integration of sustainability into all its operations.
At New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, it was with the exhibitions Countryside, The Future designed by architect Rem Koolhaas in 2021 and Spin, Spin Triangulene by Chilean artist Cecil Vicuña in 2022 that the institution began exploring practices aimed at reducing its environmental footprint, as curator Megan Fontanella explains.
The Sustainability Leadership Team and Green Team Leaders have set up a carbon footprint measurement system and new practices for the production of these two exhibitions, covering the transportation of works of art, the production of scenographic material and energy consumption, among other things. These practices are intended to be extended and taken into account well upstream in the design phase, for all exhibitions from 2024 onwards.
Beyond these efforts, carbon offsetting is an integral part of the museum’s approach, through a partnership with Art To Acres. This is an initiative founded in 2017 enabling museums, artists, galleries and collectors to contribute to large-scale land conservation through Strategic Climate Funds. Art To Acres partners include the Galleries Commit initiative and international artists such as George Condo, Rashid Johnson and Mika Rottenberg, as well as galleries such as Hauser & Wirth.
The Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen, Germany, is taking a similar approach, combining emissions reduction and offsetting, with the aim of achieving carbon neutrality for its exhibition on the exploitation of abiotic resources. Into the Deep. Mines of the Future scheduled for 2023.
It is one of 25 pilot projects selected as part of ” Programm Zero “, and as such receives a grant from the German Federal Cultural Foundation (Kulturstiftung des Bundes). By allocating a sum of 4 million euros to the “Programm Zero”, the Foundation aims to support institutions in experimenting with climate-neutral forms of production and new aesthetics of ecological sustainability, and to contribute to training and the sharing of experience between professionals. In this context, the approach adopted for the exhibition Into the Deep. Mines of the Future According to Frauke Stengel, Marketing & Sustainability Manager, this approach is based on 4 fields of action: transport, energy, scenographic material and communication (including mediation, the catalog, etc.). For example, the curatorial team has drawn extensively on the museum’s collections, the scenographic material has been reused from a previous exhibition, an energy-saving device will be tested in the exhibition rooms, the teams are forbidden to fly and must limit car journeys, advertising is reserved for media with sustainable development objectives, right down to the invitations for the vernissage, which are printed on paper made from algae, and the eco-responsible caterer. However, as all these measures do not make it possible to achieve carbon neutrality, “Programm Zero” gives its participants the option of using part of the subsidy for carbon offsetting. As for emissions resulting from visitor travel, the Zeppelin Museum encourages visitors to use public transport.
Programm Zero” and its collaborative approach resonate with a key aspect of implementing the ecological transition: cooperation and the pooling of resources between structures. In south-west Finland, thirteen museums have come together around the ” Climate Promise of Museums in Southwest Finland ” initiative, presented by its coordinator Maija Talija of the Turku Museum Centre.
Supported by the Finnish Heritage Agency, it is structured around objectives that each institution implements at its own level: reducing emissions, notably through a policy of energy sobriety and responsible purchasing; making a positive impact on visitors and all stakeholders; and training and sharing experiences. Within this network, four museums, including the Turku Art Museum, use the EcoCompass environmental management and certification system, developed by the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation and based on the ISO 14001 standard.
While there is no longer any debate among professionals about the responsibility of museums today, how can they really have a positive impact on the public? In other words, in a context of eco-anxiety or eco-fatigue, marked both by contradictory injunctions and insufficient action to achieve the objectives set for 2030, how can a museum be relevant to its audiences when addressing these issues? And what exactly do audiences expect?
2. CREATING “NEW ENCAPACITATING NARRATIVES” THROUGH PROGRAMMING AND MEDIATION: EXAMPLES FROM GENEVA’S MUSEE D’ETHNOGRAPHIE AND LONDON’S DESIGN MUSEUM
Providing keys to understanding the environmental crisis in all its complexity, in a tone that is empowering but not alarmist, and showing alternatives and encouraging us to preserve what surrounds us: this is the approach the MEG has chosen for its cultural programming, according to Mauricio Estrada-Muñoz, Head of the Audience Department. The first milestone in a reorientation of programming in the context of the 2020 – 2024 strategic plan for a sustainable and responsible museum mentioned above, the exhibition ” Environmental Injustice – Indigenous Alternatives” (24/09/21 – 21/08/22) was conceived as “a space to listen to the voices of indigenous peoples and weave a common future with them. A future based on the values of care, protection, reparation, respect and responsibility for our environment”, as stated on the website.
To inspire people to take action, the MEG’s cultural program offers resources for further action, including ” rendez-vous pour réfléchir et agir” (meetings for reflection and action) , the installation of a ” Repair café ” within the museum, collaboration with the Grandparents pour le climat association, and more.
At London’s Design Museum, we find the same desire to help people move away from paralyzing eco-anxiety towards “climate empowerment”, by combining knowledge transfer, storytelling and proposals for concrete action.
But how can you be sure that your message is relevant to your audience’s expectations?
This is the question posed by London’s Design Museum on the occasion of the exhibition ” Waste Age: What can design do? ” on show from October 23, 2021 to February 20, 2022.
According to Josephine Chanter, Director of Audiences, from the outset the teams were faced with the question of what messages and tone to adopt to tackle the issue of waste. It was therefore decided to call in Morris Hargreaves McIntyre, who carried out an audience study using Culture Segments (a segmentation of audiences based in particular on their value system), and the EcoCapital tool, designed to capture audience opinions and behaviors on environmental and climate-related subjects. The results of the study (soon available online) showed that, well aware of the climate crisis, audiences were not waiting for museums to explain it to them, but were above all looking for concrete tools to take action on their own scale.
The Design Museum drew ample inspiration from this study to develop content, scenography, messages and even the title of the exhibition, and it was in this context that a toolbox was designed, available on the institution’s website, to guide the public towards concrete levers for action: it includes information on how to carry out a carbon footprint, audit your garbage can, and recycle your electronic appliances.
Giving audiences the means to understand and mobilize, conveying both scientific knowledge about the challenges of the climate and environmental crisis and concrete tools to bring about action on an individual and collective scale: the examples of the Design Museum and the MEG illustrate how certain museums today interpret their role, echoing the new definition of the museum, through the positive impact they can exert on minds.
Through the wide variety of testimonials and operating methods presented at the Green Museums Summit, the contours of the responsible museum of the 21st century are emerging, combining energy sobriety, environmental management and public engagement. While many museums, at various levels, have already embarked on an ecological transformation, the Green Museums Summit highlighted some of the major issues that remain to be tackled, such as adapting conservation standards to the constraints of energy sobriety, digital technology and public mobility, which is responsible for a large proportion of a cultural venue’s GHG emissions. Will the “success” of this new museum soon be measured in terms of its environmental impact (including scope 3?) rather than its attendance figures? The museum’s transformation has probably only just begun…
Annabelle Türkis
