The Green Museum

the Green museum the Green museum ' A Primer on Environmental Practice Sarah S. Brophy and Elizabeth Wylie A Division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK ALTAMIRA PRESS A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, MD 20706 www.altamirapress.com Estover Road Plymouth PL6 7PY United Kingdom Copyright © 2008 by AltaMira Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brophy, Sarah S., 1961– The green museum : a primer on environmental practice / Sarah S. Brophy and Elizabeth Wylie. p. cm. ISBN-13: 978-0-7591-1164-6 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-7591-1164-2 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-7591-1165-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-7591-1165-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 13: 978-07591-1225-4 (electronic) ISBN 10: 0-7591-1225-8 (electronic) 1. Museums—Environmental aspects—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Sustainable design—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 3. Environmentalism—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 4. Museum techniques—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 5. Museums—Management— Handbooks, manuals, etc. I.Wylie, Elizabeth. II. Title. AM7.B765 2008 069—dc22 2008008230 Printed in the United States of America ™ °° The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of Ameri- can National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992. ' Contents Figures and Tables ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction xiii Chapter 1: The Idea 1 Green Is Good for All Museums 1 Collections Care 4 Green Is Here to Stay 7 How Do You Know What Green Is? 8 What Makes Buildings, Sites, and Operations Green? 9 Get the Green Word Out 11 Green Influence, Advocacy, and Market Muscle 13 Synergies with Existing Green Practices 19 Turning the Idea into Policy and Public Trust 25 Public Expectations 27 Case: Green Education in Las Vegas 31 Chapter 2: The Metrics 33 Knowing What Is Green 33 People and Systems Integration 33 Benchmarking and Creating a Baseline 35 Carbon Footprint 38 Energy Audits 40 Waste Stream Audits 43 v vi CONTENTS Life Cycle Analysis: Construction and Daily Use 43 LEED Program 44 Other Metrics, Tools, and Systems 47 Accreditation 50 Case: The Getty Center and LEED-EB 53 Case: Greening Mass Audubon 57 Chapter 3: The Options 61 Where Does It Start? 61 Creating a Green Team 62 Implementation 67 Integrated Waste Management 69 Waste Load Reduction 69 Green Products and Sourcing 80 Green Food Service and Systems 84 Green Cleaning and Maintenance 87 Green Exhibitions and Materials 88 Green Exhibitions and Energy 91 Energy Efficiency and Energy Generation 93 Water Conservation and Management 103 Green Roofs and Walls 107 Landscape and Maintenance Practices 110 Green Open Space 112 Green Historic Preservation 113 Green Transportation 115 Green Education: Connecting the Dots 116 Where Does It End? It Doesn’t! 118 Policy 121 Case: Go Green in Food Service 131 Case: Merging Green and Historic Preservation 133 Chapter 4: The Money 137 Sources and Approaches 138 Making the Case 139 Funding Examples 141 Agency Support: Federal, State, and Local 142 Nongrant Programs 143 Corporate Support 144 Mixing Funders 145 CONTENTS vii Individual Donors 148 Conclusion 149 Afterword 151 Resources 153 Abbreviations 175 Glossary 177 Index 187 About the Authors 199 ' Figures and Tables Figure 1.1. Grand Rapids Art Museum 12 Figure 1.2. Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum 15 Figure 2.1. The Trustees of Reservations’ Doyle Conservation Center 39 Figure 2.2. The Getty Center 54 Figure 3.1. Shedd Aquarium 64 Figure 3.2. Oregon Museum of Science and Industry 81 Figure 3.3. Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens 100 Figure 3.4. Bronx Zoo 119 Figure 3.5. The National Trust’s President Lincoln and 134 Soldiers’ Home National Monument Figure 4.1. ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center at the 146 Leahy Center for Lake Champlain Table 3.1. Cleveland Metroparks Zoo 74 ix ' Acknowledgments E HAVE talked to so many contributors to the green museum movement: architects, engineers, museum professionals, and Wfunders. What has been so exciting for us is the opportunity to pull together all this wonderful work and acknowledge it all in one place so that others can learn from their collective experiences. Many have con- tributed to the making of this book and we have tried to acknowledge everyone who has shared their experiences and expertise. We are frustrated that we could not include everyone’s contributions, or institutions, in the text, but we are very, very grateful for their time and interest. Sarah particularly wishes to thank Tim McNeil of the Design Museum, who is her exhibition guru and provided much of the material for that sec- tion; Julie Silverman of ECHO for so very many great ideas and examples; and Bill Gilmore of Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, who is her energy efficiency guru and go-to guy for all sorts of facilities issues. Elizabeth espe- cially thanks her former colleagues at HKT Architects for being a helpful resource, and she also honors her son, Spencer Cheek, for inspiring deep thought about the environmental legacy we are leaving for him and his children, and in turn their children. Ellie Altman Patsy Benviniste Sandra Ambrozy Juliette M. Bianco John Amodeo Aaron Binkley Sam Anderson Bob Brais Barbara Applebaum James Bulloch Maud Ayson John Castle Ana Bacall Ellen Censky Barbra Batshalom Sue Chin xi xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS David Coleman Ken Peterson Greg Dennis Richard Piacentini Robert Forloney Jack Plumb Damien Francaviglia Bob Prescott Patrice Frey Kurt Reisweber Michael Furbish Laura Roberts Gavin Gardi Tanya Salvey Bill Gillmore Chris Schaffner Vicki Greene Chris Sheppard Jen Gresham Sheila Sheridan Victoria Grossman Matthew Siegal Bill Hammer Patty Silence Paul Himmelstein Julie Silverman Nancy Hughes Gene Slear Ronald L. Hurst Janet Slemenda John Jacobsen Mitchel Smith Michelle Jost Steve Smith Eric Kluz Gail Stavitsky Mary Lou Krambeer Rick Stockwood Joan Krevlin Randall Stout John Krueger Nancy Stueber Susan Lacerte Brian Thomson John Linehan David Uschold Joseph Matyas Claudia Vietch Joseph May Stu Weinreb Tim McNeil David Wildfire Ruth Newell Mary Tod Winchester David Overholt David Winfield Bonnie Paganis Meg Winikates Stuart Parnes Jim Younger Gioia Perugini ' Introduction S PROFESSIONALS trained in art history and history, we are unabashed museum people with a collective forty-four years in the A field. The idea that this book would be useful to the museum com- munity has been driven home countless times as we talked to other museum people all over the country: the art museum director in Vermont who thought green and collections care did not mix; the paleontologist in Okla- homa who, as head of his museum’s green team, was unsure about the best replacement for their café’s Styrofoam cups; the objects conservator who is frustrated by lack of attention to air quality outside the museum; the CFO in New Jersey who is astounded by the rapid rise in the museum’s utility bills. As we attended American Association of Museums conferences and others, we talked to more folks who also expressed an urgency about address- ing environmental practices in their museums; an urgency about wanting to do something; and an urgency about stepping up to make sure their insti- tution was seen as doing something. Green is one of those things—once you catch it, understand it, and see the very real need for collective action around climate change and environmental issues—you see it everywhere. It is much like learning a new word and henceforth you hear it once a day. Take water for example. Lately we have been hearing a lot about water as the Southeast struggles with severe drought, and as climate models fore- cast shortages in the Southwest, the area with the fastest-growing popula- tion centers. Some say water is the new oil; some call it liquid gold. Across the country, increasingly strict water usage regulations on the municipal, state and regional, and national levels cannot help but impact aquariums, whose dependency on water is critical to collections care. What about botanical gardens whose species protection plans require water? What about xiii xiv INTRODUCTION heritage gardens? They use water and plenty of it to maintain historic land- scapes that speak to our cultural heritage and offer places for beauty and relaxation. Let’s then consider our rivers, streams, lakes, and coastlines whose ecological systems sustain the very flora and fauna, and support the historic sites and lifeways museums are trying to preserve and interpret. How are museums’ building and operational practices negatively affecting those environments? How about energy use? Worldwide, energy production is responsible for threatening our collective heritage and ecology. Monuments and historic places, buildings and artifacts, are being degraded and destroyed by energy production and pollution from industrialization. Animal and flora species are being lost. What about light pollution and the mission activities of plan- etariums? What about land planning? How do sprawl and the loss of open space affect the mission of a natural history museum and its ability to carry out field studies? Dig sites are disturbed and overrun; migration routes and habitat are disrupted. Should museums be contributing to these outcomes? What about air quality? Folks involved in collections care worry about air quality. Why? Consider the painting that was permanently pockmarked because the bubbles in the bubble wrap had trapped pollution that migrated to the painting surface.

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