28 May 2025
The Museums Association (MA) and Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS) recently jointly responded to the Scottish Government’s climate change duties – draft statutory guidance for public bodies: consultation.
The Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 places duties on relevant public bodies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, contribute to delivery of the Scottish National Adaptation Plan, and to act in the most sustainable way.
The public consultation sought views on the guidance for public bodies which aims to support them in putting their climate change duties into practice.
In our joint response, we raised the following points:
- The new guidance is good and poses relatively few concerns
- We would request further guidance on future scope 3 calculation advice, particularly around digital
- We would also encourage further guidance in future around insetting and offsetting as the current approved schemes have very limited credits available in Scotland
- We have some concerns around the capacity of museums to deliver the climate duties, particularly with no additional funding. Museums are facing severe financial pressures so may struggle to deliver additional duties
- The document contains a lot of very useful information but it is unlikely that museum professionals will have time to read and understand everything in the document
- We would welcome clearer guidance, conversion factors and incentives for green energy
- It would be useful if the Scottish Government could provide training for staff at public sector organisations about what their organisation’s climate duties are
- Museums have a vital role to play in raising awareness about the climate crisis and activating communities to create change.
The MA and MGS are committed to raising awareness of how museums and galleries are taking action on the climate crisis and to advocating for the necessary resources to support museums to do this work.