Museums Need to Think Smaller

A museum official said that instead of getting larger or raising more money, these cultural institutions could get smaller so they would need less money and less natural resources. Maurice Davies, the Museums Association’s (MA) head of policy and communications, spoke at the University College London Centre for Sustainable Heritage.

Davies, who oversaw the MA’s Sustainability report, praised Arts Council England’s (ACE) decision to embed environmental sustainability in its major program funding agreements from 2012. An ACE-commissioned report said regional museums have the highest energy intensity of all the organizations profiled.

The report estimated that the total carbon footprint for all 704 ACE-funded organizations was around 121,000 tonnes.