Environmental Guidelines - the Munich conference wash up

It has taken me longer than I expected to digest the Munich ' Climate for Collections' conference, not just because the content was so full on, but also because the conclusions are difficult to summarise.  What I can relay is that the proposed voting with red and green cards at the conclusion of the conference to flush out the general view of the delegates to relaxing or not relaxing environmental parameters sensibly did not go ahead. The reason for this was simply that  the issue is clearly not as simple as this.

So where do I read the current situation sits?  Somewhere along the following lines:

-  existing  environmental parameters for collections are based on a blanket approach, and are unnecessarily tight for all but the most vulnerable of artworks, e.g. panel paintings, and ignore the issue of 'proofed' RH, that is the extremes to which the artwork has already been exposed in its lifetime

-  major museums and galleries worldwide are recognising this and implementing relaxed parameters, e.g. The Tate, the Smithsonian and the V&A.

-  however a significant proportion of the conservation profession are not convinced that the risks in relaxing these parameters can be safely managed, a position best articulated by the National Gallery

- we are not going to achieve consensus amongst conservators internationally on this and therefore there will be no new blanket environmental standards ( coming to this realisation was my big take away from Munich)

But what we cannot do is to throw up our hands and say this is all too hard, not least because, in my view, folks, this is about the planet ( witness the news from the Climate Conference in Doha this week).  There are a number of ways forward:

Firstly,  in my experience air conditioning engineers and building managers are often not achieving the maximum efficiencies from HVAC systems, that is they know how they are built and operated, but are not focused on achieving optimum efficiency . To do so requires dialogue with the museum' s conservators, which is invariably not taking place.

Secondly, this dialogue can effectively achieve substantial energy savings without major capital investment and without sacrificing preservation quality, whilst safely managing any associated risks to collections. I have seen it in action.

Thirdly, this requires a holistic understanding of the collections, HVAC systems and capabilities, buildings, outdoor climate and infrastructure/capabilities of the staff .  What is clear is that every situation is unique.

This is way too important an issue to pull up the 'too hard' white flag on. You will hear more from me on this shortly.

Environmental Guidelines for museums - an update

I helped convene a seminar at the Australian Museum ten days ago entitled “ Sustainable Buildings for Sustainable Collections – we talk the talk, but can we walk the walk? The impetus for the event came from Morten Rhyl –Svendsen being in Sydney. Morten is from the Danish National Museum, an organisation which has led the way over the last decade in researching and more importantly publishing findings on the optimum method to store museum collections when combining the needs of the objects with energy saving opportunities. Tim Padfield established the Research Centre in the 1970s and Morten is part of the next generation of researchers who are taking the lead in this important area, so it was great to hear where that research is heading.

This is now about not just relaxed temperature and relative humidity parameters, but also about the number of air exchanges, the amount of recycled as against fresh air and isoperms - the rate of decay of objects as determined by the temperature and RH in which they are stored, e.g an object that will last 100 years at an average storage temperature of 22C will last 1000 years at a  temp of 15C. Check out a rather complicated explanation of isoperms here.  

Morten’s keynote was followed by a series of short talks on the science of sustainable environments for museums and the interaction that is required between conservators (determining what climate variance objects can cope with), building managers (advising what climate controls the museum's HVAC system can deliver), and visitor services staff (stating what climate variances visitors will put up with).  

What became clear to me is that the conservator/building manager relationship, where it works well, can deliver some real wins in this area. But the big decisions on the carbon footprint of the institution have to be made at executive level, and the good news is that whilst the debate to date may only have had passing resonance with this level, now that energy cost increases are really beginning to bite, they are sitting up and being prepared to listen. The work that the State Library of Victoria has been undertaking quietly but progressively in very substantially reducing the reliance on HVAC systems to maintain an appropriate environment for the Library's book storage areas has finally gained the attention of the Library's Governing Council.

However the question that I continue to be asked is when are the new relaxed parameters for temperature and RH going to be released. It's a fair call as the AICCM Task force for Guidelines for Museums and Galleries, which I chair, is long overdue in delivering these. As I pointed out in a previous blog this is partly due to the position the National Gallery in the UK is taking by if anything hardening their position. But the reality as I always now spell out is that we have now moved beyond dictating prescriptive blanket conditions and into an era of making evidence-based decisions on what is right for a collection or museum. This means that we have got to understand the particular vulnerabilities and risks of our collections  and the environmental performance capabilities of our buildings and HVAC plant.

That's a daunting task if you are a small regional museum or gallery, but the good news is that there is an increasing amount of literature available to guide you through the process, and the outcome will mean you have a much more in-depth knowledge of the physical state of your collections and the capabilities of your buildings.

Julian Bickersteth

Managing Director

internationalconservationservices

Museums, galleries and their carbon footprints

The emissions trading scheme may have been shelved in Australia for the near term (though watch this space after the ascendancy of Julia Gillard to the PM’s position) but museums and galleries, just as businesses, need to treat a low carbon and energy efficient economy as inevitable.

And what Copenhagen did achieve, although it appeared to be a failure as a climate change summit, was a global agreement to limit temperature rises to 2 degrees. To meet this target is going to require transformational changes to the world economy, and therefore inevitably to the way museums and galleries operate. The GLAM sector is going to be in a much stronger position if it can take control of its preparedness for this rather than wait for the inevitable government dictate.

And whilst this is partly about the reactionary component, i.e. checking the resilience of museums to the effects of warmer temperatures, heavier rainfall and less predictable weather patterns, and the related risks, it is also about being proactive in reducing each organisation’s carbon footprint.

I find colleagues’ eyes begin to glaze over at this stage, as it all appears too hard. So what can we learn from the rest of the world in this regard? I checked out the UK where they are substantially ahead of Australian thinking on this issue. Museums are looking to establish their carbon footprint and then to do something about reducing it, both to save money and also to be eligible for grants that are available for those that are proactive in this area.

Carbon footprints treat an organisation’s carbon emissions in three parts:

1. Direct emissions from the organisation which, for museums relate to their own boilers and fuel used by museum vehicles
2. Indirect emissions from electricity or gas purchased by the museum
3. Indirect emissions from sources outside the museum’s control, such as staff and visitors getting to the museum, waste disposal and suppliers emissions

The first stage is to establish what these are, and the benchmark for this is the Victoria and Albert Museum, which claims to be the first museum to have calculated their footprint in 2007/08. They found that not unexpectedly 82% of their emissions arise from utilities.  However it is interesting to see the breakdown of this, namely 29% of this being for lighting compared to 63% for heating, cooling and control of relative humidity - interesting in that we tend to forget how much energy lights use and then of course how much they contribute to warming up air and thus requiring more energy for cooling. The balance of the carbon footprint at the V&A is consumed by IT (11%), touring exhibitions (5%) and staff travel (2%).

Having established a carbon footprint (and bear in mind that it helps to have sub metering so the breakdown between lights, HVAC and IT use can be identified), then the next stage is to do something about it. This should be about reducing energy use, not about using renewable energy sources or carbon offsetting.

Again check out how the V&A has achieved a 20% reduction in their carbon footprint between 2005 and 2009. They have done this through using low energy lighting on time clocks, low energy environmental controls and a combined heat and power system, known in the business as CHP.

Perhaps the most impressive part of this is how they are implementing ongoing savings as they progressively refurbish the Museum. New gallery projects now optimise the use of daylight, minimise solar gain, use intelligent ventilation and heating strategies and avoid humidification and cooling. It is a model all museums and galleries can benefit from actively considering.

Julian Bickersteth
International Conservation Services

Energy consumption in museums and galleries– what can we do about it?

Giving the IIC Forbes Lecture in 2004 Andreas Burmester, the director of the Doerner Institute in Munich, obliquely identified where he felt that current environmental standards for museums and galleries were going wrong. He had just finished acting as consultant to a new art gallery in Munich, the Museum Brandhorst, and had realised he had unwittingly been part of creating an unsustainable example of an environmentally controlled space.

Whilst the standard parameters he had dictated for climate and light levels( 22 degrees C, 55% RH, 50 lux for works on paper etc) had been achieved, the cost of maintaining them in a heavily glazed modern building, is massive. In addition, the technology involved, using computerised louvres and a vast HVAC plant, meant that the moment there was a powercut the entire system would close down and the building would essentially become an oven in summer and a freezer in winter. Contrast this with the existing 19th century art gallery, the Alte Pinakothek, which is not only extremely efficient to heat by hot air from the boilers in the cellars radiating up through the walls, but also thanks to its 6 ft thick walls, able to maintain internal conditions should there be a power cut for a significant time thanks to the thermal mass of the building.

But where to now, having created the international environmental standards that any self respecting gallery must comply with in order to be eligible for loans? The bad news is that there is unlikely to be any immediate loosening of these standards. However the possible good news is that the UK Council of Museum Directors have commissioned a review of the standards in the light of the energy requirements that result from them, and MAY end up recommending some relaxation of them.

Meanwhile, there is lots of good stuff going on at an individual institutional level to see how energy costs can be reduced, whilst maintaining acceptable conditions for storage and display of collections, the so called ‘preservation equation’. Both the National Museum of Australia and the Australian War Memorial have undertaken significant research into the capacity of various material types to cope with more relaxed environmental standards. And the State Library of Victoria experimented with turning its HVAC system in the book stacks off in October 2008 to gauge the effect on the environment and energy savings.

We’ve teamed up with leading environmental engineers Steensen Varming to help institutions look at ways in which they can potentially reduce their energy costs whilst still maintaining their collections in optimum conditions, and I expect to be writing more about this shortly.