{CORRESPONDANCES DIGITALES] in collaboration with Museum Connections offers this article dedicated to eco-responsibility and sustainability. This publication is inspired by the numerous feedbacks received during the last edition of the show. For greater practicality, it takes up the approach proposed by the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) for implementing a low-carbon strategy. This approach is based on 4 stages:
- How to assess GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions in a cultural establishment? Carry out a diagnosis using appropriate measurement tools;
- How to develop a low-carbon strategy? Feedback on sustainable development plans ;
- How to implement and monitor an action plan? Museums, between sustainable product design, visitor awareness and energy renovations;
- How to evaluate a sustainable development strategy? Focus on digital experiments and systems.
1. How to assess greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in a cultural venue? Carry out a diagnosis using appropriate measurement tools
Like other economic or public-sector players, cultural venues involved in an eco-responsibility initiative are basing their approach on the notion of carbon footprint. This involves taking into account the physical flows generated by an activity, and what they entail in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Scientist Jean Marc Jancovici, one of the creators of the carbon footprint, recommends a global analysis to determine the “total pressure we exert on our environment in terms of greenhouse gases” via a set of elements that can also be measured in cultural venues:
- Space heating, electricity and water (including evaporation and leaks);
- Emissions linked to commuting and employee travel during working hours (same for suppliers);
- The use of materials to manufacture by-products (e.g. packaging), activities or exhibitions;
- Construction of the occupied building (even if rented) ;
- The treatment of waste induced directly or indirectly by a site’s activities.
The Glenstone Museum (USA) uses these methods to measure the carbon footprint of each of its activities (impact measurement and offsetting), with the ambition of becoming one of the most virtuous and environmentally-friendly museums in the world. Paul Tukey, the museum’s director of environmental studies, presented this impact measurement strategy at the conference ” Transition Verte: Comment mettre en œuvre le développement durable?” organized during Museum Connections 2022. To measure its impact, the museum identified the areas emitting the most CO2 (electricity use, visitor and staff travel) and prioritized a set of measures to offset these impacts:
- Increased recycling of manufactured products used in the museum (e.g. 80% of office objects are recycled);
- Raising team awareness (e.g. creation in 2019 of an environmental training center covering topics such as energy-efficient construction, recycling, reforestation, etc.);
- Exploitation and maintenance of the natural elements of the museum’s park (around 300 hectares!): 11,000 trees planted, development of on-site food self-sufficiency, installation of beehives and rainwater recovery systems, use of wind energy, maintenance and exploitation of wetlands (since 2010)…
Elsa Boromée, Sustainable Development Advisor at Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, also spoke at the conference. Elsa presented an approach implemented by the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, in conjunction with a consultancy firm, to measure the carbon and biodiversity impacts associated with the activities of its 13 sites (research, teaching, expertise, dissemination and collection). As part of this approach, the Muséum used the Bilan Carbone tool to establish its carbon impact, and the Global Biodiversity Score tool to identify the impact of its purchasing decisions on biodiversity. There are also plans to pursue this commitment by using a tool developed by Muséum teams to identify the impact of the management of its various sites on biodiversity.
In 2017-2018, the Muséum conducted a lifecycle analysis of the Species of Bears exhibition. This analysis identified and measured the impacts of temporary exhibitions. The recommendations drawn from this analysis were implemented during the Aux frontières de l’Humain exhibition.
Analyses of a building’s carbon footprint and energy costs are also essential when constructing or renovating a museum building. The aim is to ensure the proper conservation of works in situ in the face of extreme climatic events (e.g. flooding in Australia, which had an impact on the 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rising energy bills with a considerable impact on the preservation of animals, as is the case at the Paris Aquarium, etc.), while at the same time reducing energy impact. These are colossal stakes that have to be balanced with strict legislation on the conservation of works of art.
Once the carbon footprint of a cultural establishment has been analyzed, a strategic phase can be implemented to determine low-carbon objectives.
2. How to develop a low-carbon strategy? Feedback on sustainable development plans
Many museums and cultural venues are structurally integrating sustainable development issues through far-reaching strategies. As mentioned at the Green Transition: How to implement sustainable development conference at Museum Connections, the examples of sustainability strategies adopted by the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and SNELAC are highly inspiring.
The V&A welcomes around 4 million visitors a year. For some years now, the London cultural institution has been implementing ecological measures within the museum to “enable people, through art, design and performance, to contribute to the well-being of the planet and shape sustainable futures” in the words of Sara Kassam, the museum’s sustainability manager. It’s an ambitious goal, and one that has involved the expertise of all the museum’s staff in making sustainability a key value at every level of the organization – from the board of directors to the visitor reception staff. 800 hours of staff training have been delivered in recent years. What’s more, the notion of sustainable development is now integrated upstream of the various museum projects in terms of offerings, services, renovation or hiring… (to find out more, see the museum’s sustainability plan ).
Another way to achieve a green transition is to network and pool resources and expertise. This is the path chosen by the Syndicat National des Espaces de Loisirs, d’Attractions et Culture (SNELAC). This professional organization brings together operators of private French leisure and cultural sites (e.g. Puy du Fou, Parc Astérix, Micropolis, DéfiPlanet…). At the conference, Laura Gournay, Head of Operations, spoke of the union’s desire to “support all French leisure and cultural sites in implementing a long-term sustainable development approach, with a focus on continuous improvement”. A ” Sustainable Entertainment ” certification label was therefore introduced in 2018 to encourage member sites to increase their efforts in this area. No fewer than eighteen social, economic and environmental indicators supplemented by 119 criteria are required to receive this label. Some twenty sites have now been awarded the label.
The latest edition of Museum Connexion provided an opportunity to share ambitious facility strategies that enable cultural venues to play an active role in the ecological transition. Several examples linked to the design of derivative products, mediation and renovations also illustrate these eco-responsible strategies.
3. How to implement and monitor an action plan? Museums, between sustainable product design, visitor awareness and energy renovations
At the end of September, most of France’s major cultural establishments submitted a report to the French Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, outlining their actions and proposals for reducing energy consumption. At the end of these discussions, a global plan for the ecological transition of the cultural sector is planned (in January 2023). This news echoes the “Call to action for a shared sustainable culture” launched by the municipality of Lille and some twenty European cities on October 1. With this appeal, the signatory cities have decided to highlight various initiatives that respond to the challenges of energy and sustainable development in the cultural sector. These issues underline the need for cultural establishments to adjust their working methods internally, as is the case with by-products and in situ exhibitions.
Develop eco-responsible by-products.
The Tendance Retail: Eco-Friendly conference held at Museum Connections in 2022 was particularly inspiring in this respect. With this in mind, Jeanine AALFS, Retail Manager at Amsterdam’s Tropenmuseum, began her presentation by reminding us that “sustainable development is important to visitors, who show it through their purchases”. With this in mind, in 2017 a textile collection inspired by the more eco-responsible permanent exhibition was put together. To achieve this, the museum first selected a Dutch service provider, ReBlend, renowned for its reuse of second-life cotton fabric to recreate sewing thread. Based on this thread, a collection was designed in Portugal (shorter travel time and less energy-consuming), giving priority to knitting over spinning to promote processes that are, a priori, 20 times less energy-intensive. This collection is still one of the museum’s top 10 sellers.
At Arteum, the art, design and product concept-store company specializing in the cultural sector (Musée de Confluences, Carnavalet, Musée de l’Armée…), a similar vision is adopted to combine sales and sustainable development. “Museum stores are reference points for pleasing oneself and others with products that make sense and tell a story”, said Stéphanie Bernede, Director of Purchasing and Collections, during a richly illustrated conference on “Made in Locally “. For the stationery available in these concept stores (such as the Eiffel Tower stationery, for example), printing is now carried out locally. Special attention is also paid to organic ink labels and deforestation. Some textile objects are made as part of a social reintegration project 0 like the 13 A’tipik clothing workshop. This workshop mobilizes men and women living on the margins of society to manufacture textiles and school supplies (kits, notebooks, etc.) in Marseille, for sale in the MUCEM boutique.
Exhibitions to raise awareness and engage visitors.
The commitment of various museums to the environmental cause is increasingly reflected in the cultural programming they offer. This is, of course, true of aquariums and museums that are at the forefront of these issues. The conference How to raise awareness of environmental issues? highlights a number of examples, including those from NAUSICAA and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.
“Audiences are increasingly aware and sensitive to environmental issues,” warned Christine Causse, scientific advisor at NAUSICAA, the national marine center in Boulogne-sur-Mer. This cultural and scientific center brings together over 8,000 animals and 1,600 different species, with four main missions: leisure, education, scientific dissemination and public engagement.
To engage visitors with the relationship between human activity and global warming, NAUSICAA has revived its permanent exhibition in 2020, now entitled In the Eye of the Climate. This experiential exhibition immerses visitors in a variety of climatic events, using innovative media and digital technologies (a 5-minute film, without commentary, is mapped in a 100 m2 room up to 7 m high). After the marine environment awareness tour, the Challenge Nausicaa was created to encourage visitors to take a photo of themselves and choose one of 14 concrete actions in favor of the environment, such as “For short journeys, I choose cycling or walking” (3,147 votes) or “I turn off my electrical appliances rather than leaving them on standby” (2,478 votes).
For the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), Agnès Parent, Director of Audiences, presented a strategy built around unengaged and engaged audiences. For the former, immersive exhibitions have been designed to raise awareness of the animal ecosystem (e.g. the ReVivre augmented reality experience on extinct animals, the L’Odyssée Sensorielle immersive exhibition on different natural ecosystems). A range of targeted offers and services are also available, such as nocturnes for young adults, or illumination festivals each winter for young audiences. For those already involved, a number of participatory research programs have been set up to forge links between researchers and the general public. Since the start of the 2022 academic year, the Histoires de Nature program has been open to document the Anthropocene, i.e. the perception of change in our environment. A project that enables everyone to seek out and support scientific expertise to help researchers collect data or contribute to research projects. It’s also a tool for sharing knowledge with the public. And, for MNHN, it’s a way of getting visitors and volunteers involved in sustainable development, by encouraging them to visit one of its 13 sites.
Audience development and sustainability can thus benefit from a common strategy, as is also the case at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, a natural history museum with a predominantly family-oriented audience, has opted for a development policy aimed at active young adults (aged 16-40). The aim is to focus ecological awareness on those visitors most likely to shape tomorrow’s world.
Actions to optimize the energy impact or renovate the building of a cultural venue.
The international meeting Green Museums Summit 2022, organized by the specialized media MuseumNext, provided an opportunity for numerous museum players to discuss their sustainable development practices. Several speakers emphasized the importance of eco-responsible building renovation, including the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.
To reduce the environmental impact of its building while preserving the integrity of the works, the museum has identified three areas for improvement:
- CONSERVATION: In situ climate standards relaxed by one degree. From now on, the accepted temperature within the museum’s 10,000m2 will be between 19° and 23°, instead of 20° to 22°. A saving of e40,000 per degree per year on the energy bill;
- LIGHTING: Since 2015, we have been progressively replacing all traditional filament or halogen bulbs with LED lighting (92% reduction in energy demand for annual savings of €250,000). A next transitional stage is already planned to install mechanical light filters that vary light intensity according to daylight;
- LOGISTICS: Reduction in the construction of new walls for exhibitions, rental of boxes for transporting works previously built especially for a single occasion.
The various examples and feedback presented at Museum Connections aptly highlight the diversity of actions that can be taken in situ to promote sustainable development. The final step in implementing a low-carbon policy is to evaluate the actions taken. This can be a complex stage, particularly for digital systems and experiments.
4. How to assess the relevance of a sustainable development strategy? Focus on digital devices and experiences
The success of immersive exhibition formats (e.g. Khéops’ Horizon atInstitut du monde arabe, Pompeii exhibition at the Grand Palais, the virtual reality installation at the Paléosite de St-Césaire…) or of numerous in situ digital devices does not escape an eco-responsible analysis, despite the difficulties of really assessing their impact due to the specific nature of audiovisual technologies.
“Buy the least powerful equipment possible, change it as little as possible, and reduce unnecessary energy-consuming use” proposed the Shift Project in a study entitled Pour une sobriété numérique. According to this organization, the digital sector is responsible for 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with 45% of energy consumption for the production of digital devices and 55% for their use (in particular for audiovisual data storage). These impacts need to be set against the social impacts (conditions of workers in resource extraction zones) and design impacts (extraction of raw materials).
Several tools can be used to implement a responsible digital policy:
- NegaOctet (subsidized by ADEME): a benchmark to measure the environmental impact of digital services and suggest ways of improving them;
- GR491: 57 recommendations for the responsible design of digital services ;
- RGAA : help you improve the accessibility of your digital services.
Marguerite Courtel, founder of the Les Augures agency, spoke about these findings and resources at the conference ” Favoriser la transition numérique tout en contrôle son empreinte “, held at the last edition of Museum Connections. According to her, the two main digital activities with the greatest impact on culture are equipment (to be kept as long as possible, according to the law of the 5 Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Refuse, Resist) and video (80% of web bandwidth, 1% of global emissions, the equivalent of a country like Spain).
Data that puts the current dilemma of many museums into perspective: digital is seen as a means of continuing to reach and develop new audiences, particularly since the health crisis, creating an addition of modes of dissemination, and increasing emissions from the museum sector.
A dissonance in the face of sustainable development objectives that is being positively seized upon by players in the cultural and creative industries. PXN, the association of independent producers, recently published a White Paper on digital creation, noting that “digital creations are not a sideline to culture, but an essential part of it for thinking and telling contemporary stories”. This observation takes on the ecological question through 2 proposals:
- Make the entire immersive industry aware of the energy footprint of its productions: via accessible carbon calculators adapted to immersive formats, resolve the need for energy-intensive storage and distribution, set up ad hoc training, rethink best practices around digital data archiving…
- Launch a wide-ranging study of the impact of immersive works, based on concrete examples, to “lead to the introduction of more restrictive measures for the works supported.
This is a necessary first step before considering the introduction, over the next few years, of criteria for public procurement that will have to take environmental issues into account. Under the Climate and Resilience Act, calls for tender will have to take into account at least one environmental criterion, and technical specifications will have to include at least one sustainable development objective (SDO). The ultimate aim is to make the payment of public subsidies conditional on the provision of an approved carbon footprint, as is the objective at the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC).
For many years now, cultural and scientific establishments have been taking up the societal challenges of sustainable development. These issues are reflected in the renovation and construction of buildings, as well as in the design of exhibitions, derivative products and digital devices. And they affect every aspect of a museum’s activities, from internal organization to visitor development. As a prelude to this article, a meet-up organized by Museum Connections on December 8 explores these issues with the Louvre Lens Vallée, the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille and the Parc Zoologique de Paris.
Baudouin Duchange
