Museums continue work to address climate crisis

Former Museums Association president Maggie Appleton has said the museum sector has “incredible potential to make a major contribution to national ambitions around the climate and biodiversity crises”.

Appleton, the chief executive officer of the Royal Air Force Museum, was commenting in her role as the new climate lead for the National Museum Directors' Council (NMDC). She has taken over from Nick Merriman, the former director of the Horniman Museum who is now the chief executive of English Heritage.

The NMDC has published a report on UK Museum Cop, an event held at Tate Modern in October 2023. The aim of the meeting was to secure consensus across museums on urgent action to decarbonise the sector and mitigate the impacts of the climate and biodiversity crises. Following the event, UK museum leaders issued their first joint commitment to collective action.

“The UK Museum Cop event was a real breakthrough in collective commitment to urgent action across the museum sector," Appleton said. 

“We will continue working hard to deliver the commitments and proposals made at Cop, as well as advocating to government and funders on how they can best support the museum sector in achieving its incredible potential to make a major contribution to national ambitions around the climate and biodiversity crises.”

NMDC is working on the delivery of a series of actions from last year’s event at Tate Modern.

The event was centred on the work of a series of subgroups in the following areas: heritage buildings; Scope 3 challenges; funding; workforce and skills; and collections.

NMDC has also published the findings of a series of case studies looking at the actions and costs required to decarbonise museum buildings. 

To support the objectives of UK Museum Cop, NMDC worked with consulting engineer Buro Happold and construction consultancy Flint + Partners on a study of potential improvements to the energy performance of six different museum sites across the country, identifying where changes could be made to make buildings more efficient and reduce carbon emissions.

Each case study considers three categories: quick wins, maintenance and capital projects, and within these demonstrates a range of measures for potential carbon savings.

The MA, which is continuing with its climate campaign, recently appointed new members to its Climate Justice Steering Group.

The publication of the NMDC report comes at a time when temperature records continue to be broken around the world and weather extremes become far more common.