Sustainability is often defined as "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". So it seems odd that few museums have explicitly embraced the concept.
"Museums aim to preserve collections for the benefit of present and future audiences, so sustainability is absolutely central to their work," says Helen Wilkinson, projects officer at the Museums Association (MA). "But few appear to have thought about it seriously. In fact, most museums seem to be inherently unsustainable organisations."
One of the problems might be that sustainability is often seen as being only about mitigating climate change - being more energy efficient and less wasteful. And while that's important, it can sound like a bit of a mechanistic chore, marginal to the core work of museums.
But according to Alice Graham, exhibition projects manager at the National Maritime Museum in London, being sustainable is not about stopping what museums do. "It's about being more thoughtful, more creative. It offers massive opportunities." She says it could give museums a new way of seeing their purpose, relating to society and planning their future.
The National Trust takes sustainability more seriously than most heritage organisations. Its historic properties director, Sarah Staniforth, says that it's important to adopt a "triple-bottom-line" approach to sustainability and think about social, economic and environmental factors. It is this broad view of sustainability that runs through a new MA discussion paper, which is out for consultation this summer.
From the point of view of economic sustainability, museums are used to thinking about their year-to-year financial viability. Most rely on public funding, and money is often tight, although it has been rare for a museum to go bust. But many are overstretched, often trying to do more and more on relatively level income.
From one point of view that represents good value, but from another staff are exhausted and organisations are fragile. True economic sustainability requires a long-term approach to funding. Being bold and diversifying income is one answer; another is setting clear organisational priorities and living within your means.
Museums that focus on learning, audiences and diversity score well on social sustainability, especially if they aim to serve long-term local audiences rather than one-off tourist visitors. But although museums might do OK on the social and economic front, they generally perform badly when it comes to environmental sustainability.
David Martin, the former editor of Museum Practice magazine, says that caring about the environment should be a natural extension of museums' core role of stewardship of their collections.
And May Cassar, professor of sustainable heritage at University College London (UCL), goes further, saying that it's double standards for museums to "conserve material evidence, but not worry about the conservation of the environment".
Some museums, such as the Natural History Museum, have made great strides to reduce their energy use (see box below). But generally, museums are energy-hungry. They try to control their internal environment too tightly and still wrongly see air-conditioning as a gold standard.
Cassar says museums need to find ways to maintain conditions for collection conservation without excessive dependence on the use of energy. Rethinking collections-care standards, especially for items on loan to exhibitions, could reduce energy consumption - and make lending easier and cheaper.
There are other ways to reduce environmental impact. The Heritage Lottery Fund's Planning Greener Heritage Projects publication has tips for museums and galleries that are keen to be greener. And there are already some examples of best practice in the sector, such as the National Maritime Museum's permanent Your Ocean gallery, which uses recycled and reclaimed materials and environmentally friendly construction techniques.
Its designer, the London-based agency Thomas Matthews, claims it is "possibly the most sustainable permanent gallery in the UK". A touring version of the gallery is made mostly from cardboard. The MA's work on sustainability is overseen by its ethics committee.
Its convener, Vanessa Trevelyan, is also head of the Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service. She says: "Once I started thinking about it, sustainability related to everything we're doing at Norfolk. Being sustainable means actually having staff with the skills we need and succession planning."
Nikola Burdon, the MA's policy officer, agrees that knowledge management is vital: "Museums squander quite a lot of collections knowledge at the moment, especially when project staff finish their contracts or permanent staff retire. We need to invest effort in holding on to the knowledge that's been created and making it accessible."
Nick Merriman, director of Manchester Museum, says it's ironic that "as memory organisations, museums are almost entirely amnesiac about themselves".
In 2004 Merriman conducted research that showed museums were acquiring far more than they dispose of, often at a rate of 1,000 to one. He questions museums' slavish acceptance of predecessors' decisions and says organisations that allow their collections to grow while lacking effective collections management are unsustainable.
"They seem not to be meeting the needs of the present in full because they are not able to realise the potential of the collections they hold."
Even worse, "they are compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs by passing these collections to them to look after, having added even more material to them".
And it's not only collections that are getting bigger; the museum sector is inexorably increasing, too. Hedley Swain, head of museums policy at the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, says: "You have to think about the overall audience for museums and the finite resources in terms of public funds and energy. This leads to questions about the size and number of institutions in an area or region."
Over the past decade, the UK museum sector has certainly got hooked on growth: growth in audiences, growth in buildings, growth in ambition. In some respects this has been good but it may not be sustainable.
According to museum planner Gail Dexter Lord, museum expansions usually "increase the cost of operations more than the increase in revenue from visitors". It seems probable that most of them increase the energy needed per visit, too.
Sustainable modernisation might mean a slower pace of change - but that doesn't have to mean stasis, especially when the subject offers so much potential for thoughtful creative change. A sustainable museum might aim to communicate more deeply with audiences, attracting repeat visitors to high-quality (but no larger) spaces.
This could mean more talks, workshops and events. Sustainability implies closer involvement with the education system and more links and partnerships with other parts of society. It might mean more off-site and online services.
It's not yet clear though what sustainability means for museum displays. Given the public interest in the subject, particularly climate change, it should be a good topic for exhibitions. Some organisations have realised this, including the Rural Museums Network. It is helping its members engage with what it sees as the key issue of our time (see box below).
Former arts minister and secretary of state for education Estelle Morris wrote in the department for culture's 2004 Sustainable Development Strategy that museums have a "unique position in being able to raise awareness and stimulate the public's interest" in sustainable development.
Sustainability, rather than history or taxonomy, could become an organising principle of museum displays. On the practical side of developing exhibitions, there obviously needs to be low-energy lighting and sustainable display materials.
Economic and environmental sustainability would also be improved by less change, especially fewer temporary exhibitions. But for many museums they are an important way of attracting repeat visits. There may be lessons to learn from libraries and parks, which are relatively unchanging yet attract many repeat users, from all parts of society.
Sustainability will need the support of funders. According to consultant Adrian Ellis, writing for the Mission, Models, Money sustainability campaign, cultural organisations try to do more than they can possibly do well. "Additional resources are generally more likely to result in further under-funded expansion than in doing core things better."
Dawn Austwick, chief executive of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation (and former deputy director of the British Museum), believes museums need to change their focus. "It's time to move away from short-term obsessional behaviour around money and on to a longer term vision around purpose," she says.
A sustainable museum will need long-term clarity about its objectives. It will need to decide what it aims to offer society - and be sure this is what society wants and needs. And it will have to be realistic about what it can deliver.
A basic credo of sustainability is that organisations should plan holistically, taking full account of social, environmental and economic aspects of their work. Museums need to continue to improve their service to society without overstretching themselves and while reducing their use of energy and other natural resources.
Maurice Davies is the deputy director of the Museums Association.
For more information, including the MA's discussion paper and details of free discussion workshops on sustainability and museums, visit www.museumsassociation.org/sustainability
"Museums aim to preserve collections for the benefit of present and future audiences, so sustainability is absolutely central to their work," says Helen Wilkinson, projects officer at the Museums Association (MA). "But few appear to have thought about it seriously. In fact, most museums seem to be inherently unsustainable organisations."
One of the problems might be that sustainability is often seen as being only about mitigating climate change - being more energy efficient and less wasteful. And while that's important, it can sound like a bit of a mechanistic chore, marginal to the core work of museums.
But according to Alice Graham, exhibition projects manager at the National Maritime Museum in London, being sustainable is not about stopping what museums do. "It's about being more thoughtful, more creative. It offers massive opportunities." She says it could give museums a new way of seeing their purpose, relating to society and planning their future.
The National Trust takes sustainability more seriously than most heritage organisations. Its historic properties director, Sarah Staniforth, says that it's important to adopt a "triple-bottom-line" approach to sustainability and think about social, economic and environmental factors. It is this broad view of sustainability that runs through a new MA discussion paper, which is out for consultation this summer.
From the point of view of economic sustainability, museums are used to thinking about their year-to-year financial viability. Most rely on public funding, and money is often tight, although it has been rare for a museum to go bust. But many are overstretched, often trying to do more and more on relatively level income.
From one point of view that represents good value, but from another staff are exhausted and organisations are fragile. True economic sustainability requires a long-term approach to funding. Being bold and diversifying income is one answer; another is setting clear organisational priorities and living within your means.
Museums that focus on learning, audiences and diversity score well on social sustainability, especially if they aim to serve long-term local audiences rather than one-off tourist visitors. But although museums might do OK on the social and economic front, they generally perform badly when it comes to environmental sustainability.
David Martin, the former editor of Museum Practice magazine, says that caring about the environment should be a natural extension of museums' core role of stewardship of their collections.
And May Cassar, professor of sustainable heritage at University College London (UCL), goes further, saying that it's double standards for museums to "conserve material evidence, but not worry about the conservation of the environment".
Some museums, such as the Natural History Museum, have made great strides to reduce their energy use (see box below). But generally, museums are energy-hungry. They try to control their internal environment too tightly and still wrongly see air-conditioning as a gold standard.
Cassar says museums need to find ways to maintain conditions for collection conservation without excessive dependence on the use of energy. Rethinking collections-care standards, especially for items on loan to exhibitions, could reduce energy consumption - and make lending easier and cheaper.
There are other ways to reduce environmental impact. The Heritage Lottery Fund's Planning Greener Heritage Projects publication has tips for museums and galleries that are keen to be greener. And there are already some examples of best practice in the sector, such as the National Maritime Museum's permanent Your Ocean gallery, which uses recycled and reclaimed materials and environmentally friendly construction techniques.
Its designer, the London-based agency Thomas Matthews, claims it is "possibly the most sustainable permanent gallery in the UK". A touring version of the gallery is made mostly from cardboard. The MA's work on sustainability is overseen by its ethics committee.
Its convener, Vanessa Trevelyan, is also head of the Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service. She says: "Once I started thinking about it, sustainability related to everything we're doing at Norfolk. Being sustainable means actually having staff with the skills we need and succession planning."
Nikola Burdon, the MA's policy officer, agrees that knowledge management is vital: "Museums squander quite a lot of collections knowledge at the moment, especially when project staff finish their contracts or permanent staff retire. We need to invest effort in holding on to the knowledge that's been created and making it accessible."
Nick Merriman, director of Manchester Museum, says it's ironic that "as memory organisations, museums are almost entirely amnesiac about themselves".
In 2004 Merriman conducted research that showed museums were acquiring far more than they dispose of, often at a rate of 1,000 to one. He questions museums' slavish acceptance of predecessors' decisions and says organisations that allow their collections to grow while lacking effective collections management are unsustainable.
"They seem not to be meeting the needs of the present in full because they are not able to realise the potential of the collections they hold."
Even worse, "they are compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs by passing these collections to them to look after, having added even more material to them".
And it's not only collections that are getting bigger; the museum sector is inexorably increasing, too. Hedley Swain, head of museums policy at the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, says: "You have to think about the overall audience for museums and the finite resources in terms of public funds and energy. This leads to questions about the size and number of institutions in an area or region."
Over the past decade, the UK museum sector has certainly got hooked on growth: growth in audiences, growth in buildings, growth in ambition. In some respects this has been good but it may not be sustainable.
According to museum planner Gail Dexter Lord, museum expansions usually "increase the cost of operations more than the increase in revenue from visitors". It seems probable that most of them increase the energy needed per visit, too.
Sustainable modernisation might mean a slower pace of change - but that doesn't have to mean stasis, especially when the subject offers so much potential for thoughtful creative change. A sustainable museum might aim to communicate more deeply with audiences, attracting repeat visitors to high-quality (but no larger) spaces.
This could mean more talks, workshops and events. Sustainability implies closer involvement with the education system and more links and partnerships with other parts of society. It might mean more off-site and online services.
It's not yet clear though what sustainability means for museum displays. Given the public interest in the subject, particularly climate change, it should be a good topic for exhibitions. Some organisations have realised this, including the Rural Museums Network. It is helping its members engage with what it sees as the key issue of our time (see box below).
Former arts minister and secretary of state for education Estelle Morris wrote in the department for culture's 2004 Sustainable Development Strategy that museums have a "unique position in being able to raise awareness and stimulate the public's interest" in sustainable development.
Sustainability, rather than history or taxonomy, could become an organising principle of museum displays. On the practical side of developing exhibitions, there obviously needs to be low-energy lighting and sustainable display materials.
Economic and environmental sustainability would also be improved by less change, especially fewer temporary exhibitions. But for many museums they are an important way of attracting repeat visits. There may be lessons to learn from libraries and parks, which are relatively unchanging yet attract many repeat users, from all parts of society.
Sustainability will need the support of funders. According to consultant Adrian Ellis, writing for the Mission, Models, Money sustainability campaign, cultural organisations try to do more than they can possibly do well. "Additional resources are generally more likely to result in further under-funded expansion than in doing core things better."
Dawn Austwick, chief executive of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation (and former deputy director of the British Museum), believes museums need to change their focus. "It's time to move away from short-term obsessional behaviour around money and on to a longer term vision around purpose," she says.
A sustainable museum will need long-term clarity about its objectives. It will need to decide what it aims to offer society - and be sure this is what society wants and needs. And it will have to be realistic about what it can deliver.
A basic credo of sustainability is that organisations should plan holistically, taking full account of social, environmental and economic aspects of their work. Museums need to continue to improve their service to society without overstretching themselves and while reducing their use of energy and other natural resources.
Maurice Davies is the deputy director of the Museums Association.
For more information, including the MA's discussion paper and details of free discussion workshops on sustainability and museums, visit www.museumsassociation.org/sustainability
Rural Museums Network: focusing on sustainability
The Rural Museums Network is making sustainability the main focus of its activities for the next two years. One of its first initiatives is the creation of a carbon calculator tool to help museums work out how much energy they consume across the whole of their operations, including buildings, staff, supply chains and by museum visitors themselves.
"Sustainability is the new big battleground for museums," says Tony Butler, director of the Museum of East Anglian Life in Stowmarket and vice-chairman of the network. "We're operating with a triple-bottom-line policy, where environmental, social and economic sustainability are given equal weight."
But rural museums are grappling with a dilemma over the carbon footprint of their visitors. People often reach them by car as they are in isolated locations, resulting in relatively high carbon consumption per visit.
One solution is to discourage visitors from using cars, promoting alternative modes of transport through better information and collaboration with local bus and train companies. But deterring car drivers from accessing a site is likely to reduce visitor numbers, not least because of government funding cuts in 2006 for car-free leisure transport schemes.
The National Trust is working to reduce car visits to its properties from 90 per cent to 60 per cent by 2020. But the trust's historic properties director, Sarah Staniforth, recognises the conundrum it faces.
"Transport is our achilles heel because we're trying to promote the greenness of the organisation while recognising that there's a big carbon footprint from visitor travel. Rural museums are in a similar situation."
Some solutions may come from adopting a local focus. Using local produce for museum cafes, for example, reduces food miles and supports an area's businesses and jobs, generating a social sustainability. Setting up museum-based training courses linked to NVQ credits can help economic sustainability by generating revenue, and establish the museum in the fabric of local lives.
Bolstered by regular museum events and a sustainability-aware exhibition programme, this type of local integration promotes repeat visitors from within the community, reducing the reliance on car visits from further afield.
www.ruralmuseumsnetwork.org.uk
Scott Billings
The Rural Museums Network is making sustainability the main focus of its activities for the next two years. One of its first initiatives is the creation of a carbon calculator tool to help museums work out how much energy they consume across the whole of their operations, including buildings, staff, supply chains and by museum visitors themselves.
"Sustainability is the new big battleground for museums," says Tony Butler, director of the Museum of East Anglian Life in Stowmarket and vice-chairman of the network. "We're operating with a triple-bottom-line policy, where environmental, social and economic sustainability are given equal weight."
But rural museums are grappling with a dilemma over the carbon footprint of their visitors. People often reach them by car as they are in isolated locations, resulting in relatively high carbon consumption per visit.
One solution is to discourage visitors from using cars, promoting alternative modes of transport through better information and collaboration with local bus and train companies. But deterring car drivers from accessing a site is likely to reduce visitor numbers, not least because of government funding cuts in 2006 for car-free leisure transport schemes.
The National Trust is working to reduce car visits to its properties from 90 per cent to 60 per cent by 2020. But the trust's historic properties director, Sarah Staniforth, recognises the conundrum it faces.
"Transport is our achilles heel because we're trying to promote the greenness of the organisation while recognising that there's a big carbon footprint from visitor travel. Rural museums are in a similar situation."
Some solutions may come from adopting a local focus. Using local produce for museum cafes, for example, reduces food miles and supports an area's businesses and jobs, generating a social sustainability. Setting up museum-based training courses linked to NVQ credits can help economic sustainability by generating revenue, and establish the museum in the fabric of local lives.
Bolstered by regular museum events and a sustainability-aware exhibition programme, this type of local integration promotes repeat visitors from within the community, reducing the reliance on car visits from further afield.
www.ruralmuseumsnetwork.org.uk
Scott Billings
Reducing carbon emissions in South Kensington
In 2006 the Natural History Museum (NHM) embarked on a programme to reduce the carbon footprint of the museum and its neighbours on the South Kensington Cultural and Academic Estate in London.
Using an Invest to Save government grant of £2.85m, its masterplan will coordinate energy reductions across the Science Museum, Imperial College London, Victoria and Albert Museum and Royal Albert Hall, as well as the NHM itself.
The bulk of this grant is being spent on the installation of energy sub metering systems, says Declan Rajasingam, who is overseeing the project on secondment to the NHM from climate change consultancy CarbonSense, where he is the low carbon futures manager.
Once these smart meters are installed, they will show in detail the origins of each building's energy consumption, isolating floors, departments and some of the larger pieces of individual equipment.
"This is a vastly complicated process and we are still sorting out the smart meters and finalising the installation of the data-gathering technology," says Rajasingam. "But once we start receiving data, the institutions will be able to build a customised scheme of energy saving based on their particular situation. This is a much more bespoke approach to energy saving than generic behavioural campaigns, such as reminding people to switch off lights."
It is thought that in the short-term, about 7.5 per cent of energy consumption and carbon emissions could be saved just by rectifying "inefficient situations and equipment" revealed by the smart meter data.
This equates to a cash saving of some £650,000 across the estate, at current prices. About £60,000 of this would derive from selling unused carbon allocations through the European Union Emission Trading Scheme.
However, only the Royal Albert Hall is currently on schedule to start gathering this information. Rajasingam says that the other institutions have been slower in setting up, partly because of the more complex and varied activities taking place in their buildings.
www.nhm.ac.uk
Scott Billings
In 2006 the Natural History Museum (NHM) embarked on a programme to reduce the carbon footprint of the museum and its neighbours on the South Kensington Cultural and Academic Estate in London.
Using an Invest to Save government grant of £2.85m, its masterplan will coordinate energy reductions across the Science Museum, Imperial College London, Victoria and Albert Museum and Royal Albert Hall, as well as the NHM itself.
The bulk of this grant is being spent on the installation of energy sub metering systems, says Declan Rajasingam, who is overseeing the project on secondment to the NHM from climate change consultancy CarbonSense, where he is the low carbon futures manager.
Once these smart meters are installed, they will show in detail the origins of each building's energy consumption, isolating floors, departments and some of the larger pieces of individual equipment.
"This is a vastly complicated process and we are still sorting out the smart meters and finalising the installation of the data-gathering technology," says Rajasingam. "But once we start receiving data, the institutions will be able to build a customised scheme of energy saving based on their particular situation. This is a much more bespoke approach to energy saving than generic behavioural campaigns, such as reminding people to switch off lights."
It is thought that in the short-term, about 7.5 per cent of energy consumption and carbon emissions could be saved just by rectifying "inefficient situations and equipment" revealed by the smart meter data.
This equates to a cash saving of some £650,000 across the estate, at current prices. About £60,000 of this would derive from selling unused carbon allocations through the European Union Emission Trading Scheme.
However, only the Royal Albert Hall is currently on schedule to start gathering this information. Rajasingam says that the other institutions have been slower in setting up, partly because of the more complex and varied activities taking place in their buildings.
www.nhm.ac.uk
Scott Billings
