Stefan Simon, Director of the Rathgen Research Laboratory with the National Museums Berlin

Climate crisis has arrived in our museums. It manifests itself, for example, in increasing risk scenarios such as severe weather events, but also in our own ecological footprint, which threatens to undermine our very own mission, the sustainable preservation of cultural heritage. 

In relation to their area, museums are ranking among the top energy consumers in the urban context. Taking into account the gray energy contained in new buildings, the global trend to build more and more museums over the past 20 years is fundamentally at odds with the urgent need to reduce the use of our resources in a changing climate. Among the main obstacles on the way to becoming more sustainable and climate-friendly is excessive air conditioning, which is traditionally based more on technical feasibility than on conservation needs. This said, a thoughtful concern for the environment is nothing but a natural extension of one of the core tasks of memory institutions, namely to act as trustees and sustainable stewards of their collections for the future. 

With the planetary boundaries crumbling, we have only a few years left to cut carbon emissions in half, an urgency which is not reflected in museum constructions and operations. Notwithstanding the political backlash, it is about time for museums to finally “look up” and realign their priorities.