This guide offers museums (everywhere, small, large and every kind) an opportunity to contribute to the United Nations SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals). These SDGs are the most ambitious worldwide programme ever, tackling a wide range of social and ecological challenges guiding the world to a sustainable future in 2030.

Climate impact through use is barely a fifth of an item’s impact: the rest is hidden. Most of the impact is in manufacture and transport (sometimes from the across the world) and has already happened before we buy the product. By taking this hidden impact into account, we can make our sustainability more effective. Read Babette Porcelijn’s inspiring book on hidden impact (also available in PDF): her tips and tricks are easily adapted for venues.

The Flemish website Cultuurzaam offers a toolkit for a sustainable culture, youth and media sector. The completed questionnaire provides an eco-snapshot of the way an organization operates, irrespective of products or creative processes. The checklist was developed by Kunstenpunt and Ecolife, with the support of the Flemish government.

The Green Toolbox is an English-language publication offering tips to make the workplace and organisation more sustainable. It’s an extensive tool that examines how organisations operate, buildings, publications, merchandise, food, waste etc. It contains tips to reduce paper and water use, to save energy, and for example, more sustainable merchandise.

The city of Aarhus in Denmark was Europe’s cultural capital in 2017. There they developed a model to help local cultural venues reduce their environmental footprint. It’s a generic model which can be applied anywhere, focusing on four essential facets: catering, day-to-day operations and mobility, architecture and building management, and communications and behaviour.

This approach encompasses the whole lifecycle of a project or product, such as an exhibition. The Ecodesign Strategy Wheel offers a handy checklist to stimulate design and solution improvements in key phases of a product’s lifecycle providing useful opportunities to make projects more sustainable in creative ways. With a downloadable worksheet!