As Sarah Sutton (Principal of Sustainable Museums), states “Museums hold in one body the diverse physical and intellectual resources, abilities, creativity, freedom, and authority to foster the changes the world needs most.” She suggests that there are four steps any institution can take right away to move in a sustainable direction: Determine your institution’s annual carbon footprint, arrange for an energy audit from your utility, stop promoting single-use plastics, and talk about sustainability and climate change.
Certainly, being “green” it’s not only using recycling materials, it has to do more on how much waste is produced, how this affects the environment and how it can be improved. Of course, those four previously mentioned play an important role when it comes to achieving change, and their low complexity means that they can be implemented not only in museums, but also in other institutions with high importance and influence, so as to achieve the true adjustment that the planet needs.
In conclusion, museums have a high influence on education, and they can make use of this in an issue of such importance as climate change. It's necessary to make their mission a sustainable true series of facts to not just implement a more eco-friendlier format, but to raise awareness and empower people to create real change by making a priority educating and informing the community about environmental concerns that affect us as a worldwide community.
By María José Reyes, Step 10 Yellow
