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What's one thing museums can do to embrace environmental sustainability?

  • 1.  What's one thing museums can do to embrace environmental sustainability?

    Posted 03-01-2021 03:34 PM
    Hello Museum Junction!

    If you subscribe to Field Notes, AAM's weekly newsletter of articles published on our website, you may know that we pose a big question about a topic of conversation in the field to readers at the beginning of every month. Since we get so many thoughtful responses, we thought we would start sharing them here, where it's possible to build a dialogue.

    February's question was: What's one thing museums can do to embrace environmental sustainability? And here are the responses we published in this morning's newsletter:

    • "Provide opportunities for community members to get involved in environmental research and monitoring efforts through community science projects" – Liese Murphree
    • "Make a concerted effort of clearly pointing out when items within the museum (furniture, displays, etc) have been reused from one area/exhibit to another…it provides children & adults with a clear model to emulate in their own home." – Jennifer Gray
    • "Change lightbulbs and use compost-friendly dining ware in their cafés." – @kiraewebb
    • "Start by having conversations about environmental racism and inequality." – @cris_scorza
    • "If your museum is in a drought-prone region, like much of the West, initiate a grey-water/rain-water capture project in partnership with city/county authorities. An email gets it going!" – Edward R. Bosley
    What do you think? Have you seen any of these methods used to good effect, or are there others you champion? I look forward to hearing everyone's thoughts!

    (And if you're new to this topic and want to read more, I would recommend the excellent posts written by the directors of the Anchorage Museum and Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens on our site.)

    ------------------------------
    Joseph O'Neill
    Content Manager and Editor
    American Alliance of Museums
    Arlington, VA
    joneill@aam-us.org
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: What's one thing museums can do to embrace environmental sustainability?

    Posted 03-02-2021 12:02 PM
    Hello!

    The timing of your post was so prudent--I was just thinking about this yesterday as we were loading up dumpsters with the debris from a recently struck exhibition. From discarded vinyl graphics and printed labels/signage, to paint cans, to mat board, cardboard and paper debris... a short 4-6 month long exhibit can generate a giant amount of waste. 

    Personally, I would like to see more consideration given to mounts, frames, display cases, and even shipping crates that can be reused or retrofitted for use with multiple items whenever possible. Recycling clean cardboard and proper disposal of paint and aerosol cans is another great solution, but also switching to LED lightbulbs and versatile exhibition furniture can be hugely helpful in reducing exhibit waste. 

    Looking forward to following this post as this has been on my mind recently!

    -Keri

    ------------------------------
    Keri Smith
    Associate Preparator
    Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art - University of Oklahoma
    Norman OK
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: What's one thing museums can do to embrace environmental sustainability?

    Posted 03-02-2021 12:51 PM
    Hi all, there are ongoing webinars and other resources that AAM's Environment and Climate professional network provide, you can find us here: https://www.aam-us.org/professional-networks/environment-and-climate-network/.

    If you were asking *me* what that one thing is, it would be integrating a holistic systems-based approach to sustainability across your institution that prioritizes people and your mission. I co-authored a short piece in Greenbiz on this a few years ago: https://www.greenbiz.com/article/how-field-museum-accelerated-sustainability.

    Best,

    Carter

    --
    Carter O'Brien, LEED AP O+M (he/him)
    Sustainability Officer
    Keller Science Action Center


    Cell: 773-213-2790
    Field Museum
    1400 S. Lake Shore Dr.
    Chicago, IL 60605

    The Field Museum resides on the ancestral homelands of the Three Fires Confederacy: Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi. The area was also a site of trade, gathering and healing for more than a dozen other Native tribes. Illinois is currently home to more than 100,000 tribal members.



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  • 4.  RE: What's one thing museums can do to embrace environmental sustainability?

    Posted 03-03-2021 07:06 AM
    Hi, Keri - et al - I so feel your pain!  Being a member of the older generation of museum folks, and whose parents were refugees, it's always pained me to see materials wasted.  We are fortunate to have a brilliant carpenter on our Facilities staff who can re-make anything.  But I get (justifiable) guff from the parent institution for taking up storage space.  It's a balancing act.

    One thing I've been able to do over the years, when I am 100% certain we'll never need whatever it is, offer to donate it to another institution.  In fact, here, the CT League of History Organizations shares information about things needed and things available.  There may be a school, gallery or other arts organization wanting to take the stuff you're throwing away.   Vivian

    Vivian F. Zoë, Director
    Slater Memorial Museum
    108 Crescent Street, Norwich CT 06360
    860-425-5560 vox
    860-885-0379 fax

    "Inspiration is for amateurs - the rest of us just show up and get to work," Chuck Close, 2003


    Please note:  The information contained in this email and any attachments hereto is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the designated recipients.  If the reader/recipient of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this email and all attachments hereto in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this email or any of its attachments is strictly prohibited.  If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by email and destroy the original message received.  Thank You.



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  • 5.  RE: What's one thing museums can do to embrace environmental sustainability?

    Posted 03-03-2021 11:05 AM
    Hi Vivian, that's a great practice and definitely one worth pursuing. The Field Museum keeps a diverse selection of display cases on hand that we routinely loan out to smaller museums, pop up displays at libraries, community centers, etc. when they have temporary exhibitions. One example is that our involvement helped facilitate the loaning of artifacts to Chicago's Japanese Culture Center from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum in 2016. It was a humbling and very rewarding experience.

    Chicago's Museums in the Park are just about ready to move forward with the asset-sharing resource management platform Rheaply, with the goal of improving our own internal asset-sharing practices, allowing our cultural institutions to be a lending library for each other, and as to redirect materials and objects from landfill that can be reused by local nonprofits who specialize in serving schools and communities. It's going to be a bit of extra work on the front end to set up, so we'll have a few of our larger institutions pilot the program and work out the kinks, as we go through more stuff and have more staff.

    Carter

    --
    Carter O'Brien, LEED AP O+M (he/him)
    Sustainability Officer
    Keller Science Action Center


    Cell: 773-213-2790
    Field Museum
    1400 S. Lake Shore Dr.
    Chicago, IL 60605

    The Field Museum resides on the ancestral homelands of the Three Fires Confederacy: Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi. The area was also a site of trade, gathering and healing for more than a dozen other Native tribes. Illinois is currently home to more than 100,000 tribal members.



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  • 6.  RE: What's one thing museums can do to embrace environmental sustainability?

    Posted 03-05-2021 01:53 PM

    In addition to donating to other organizations, there may be a reuse store in your area that will take particular building supplies. Two US networks for that are Habitat for Humanity Re-Stores (https://www.habitat.org/restores) and Build Reuse (https://www.buildreuse.org/). Depending on your organizations policies, you may also be able to purchase materials from a reuse store instead of buying new.

     

    Mamiko K. Carroll

    Information Specialist

    State Foundation on Culture and the Arts

    250 South Hotel St.

    Second Floor

    Honolulu, HI 96813

    (808) 586-0305

    www.sfca.hawaii.gov

     




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  • 7.  RE: What's one thing museums can do to embrace environmental sustainability?

    Posted 03-03-2021 11:46 AM

    Hi Keri, and many others! 

    From a practical solution standpoint, and offering 3 examples as case studies, we have been leading the charge on sustainable showcases for use in traveling and temporary exhibitions for many years now. Our TESS Demountable range of cases has been used in numerous shows at the Royal Ontario Museum and the National Museum of African American History & Culture for their changing galleries, and it pains me to see how much other exhibition materials are discarded at the change-over for each exhibition. The cases themselves are reconfigurable and flat-packable, so even if their entire inventory of showcases is not in use, the back of house handling & storage is all handled by museum staff. 

    The third case study I would offer is even a more dramatic example of sustainability. After more than 15,000,000 visitors had viewed the objects protected in our cases for the most recent 'King Tut' exhibition worldwide, the show producers managed to re-sell the "used" cases to another traveling exhibition, for which they were used for an entirely new series of blockbuster shows. 

    The adage of "you get what you pay for" is so true; while the initial investment for a top-specification, high-security, glass museum showcase may be considerable, these 3 examples provide real world evidence of how making a smart investment pays dividends, not only for an annual capital budget, but also for the planet. 

    I would be pleased to answer any specifics or put folks in touch with the clients who are using these cases should that be helpful.

    Kind Regards,

    RYAN A. SKORCH  VICE PRESIDENT

    CLICKNETHERFIELD, INC.  

     

     

    Mobile 856.313.6688

    www.clicknetherfield.com  

     

    Click Netherfield, Inc. 

    1103 Laurel Oak Road, Suite 107, Voorhees, NJ 08043. USA


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  • 8.  RE: What's one thing museums can do to embrace environmental sustainability?

    Posted 03-08-2021 10:00 AM
    Museums with endowments can divest those endowments from fossils fuels. Lots of museums and universities have already done this successfully. There is new research on ESG (environment, sustainability and governance) funds that have shown they outperformed other index funds on average, so the "common knowledge" that one must invest in fossil fuels to make money has been thrown into question.
    The best thing about divesting? Museum endowments are often very large, but altering your investments can be a simple switch (after the right approvals and discussions) so it is a low-effort-high-impact change. If your endowment is already invested in broad based index funds (most are), one switch to a different ESG index moves all of your investments out of fossil fuels.

    ------------------------------
    Moira Mosley-Duffy
    Associate Registrar
    San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
    San Francisco CA
    ------------------------------



  • 9.  RE: What's one thing museums can do to embrace environmental sustainability?

    Posted 03-09-2021 04:32 PM

    Most museums have already been forced into doing this by the pandemic, but continuing to allow/encourage working from home for those personnel when possible is taking a lot of cars out of the daily commute.  Not every museum job can be done off-site, but a number of them can, at least partially. 

              - Michael



    ------------------------------
    Michael Holland
    Principal/Owner
    Michael Holland Productions

    Redmond, WA USA
    ------------------------------



  • 10.  RE: What's one thing museums can do to embrace environmental sustainability?

    Posted 03-11-2021 04:53 PM

    Air Filtration has obvious implications for post pandemic operations, but many folks are just learning that Air Filtration can also serve as an energy conservation measure (ECM) that can provide long term sustainable cost savings.  There are advanced air filtration products available with MERV 15 performance and low static pressure resistance.  The low static pressure means it takes less fan energy to push air through filters which in turn saves substantial energy dollars.  They also have high dust holding which means lower maintenance costs; replacing media every few years instead of every few months. Higher front costs, but good ROIs depending on how many hours the systems run.

     

    Rob Goodfellow

    Robert Goodfellow, CAFS
    Vice President Marketing
    800.578.7873 • M: 479.285.0067
       




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