Green Conference Setting: Cardboard Exhibit Halls

I recently attended two conferences with significant exhibit hall innovations in display materials. It's a very attractive sustainability approach I encourage all trade show hosts to mandate. 

Forestry Stewardship Council: FSC-certified materials IUCN2016

GreenBuild 2016 in Los Angeles, the conference for the United States Green Building Council had a smattering of cardboard exhibit stations. The vendors reported that the material was so light to ship,

easy to pack, and durable that they were taken by surprise AND sold on using it for future events.

The entire exhibit hall was cardboard at the 2016 World Conservation Congress in Honolulu, held by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The forms could be made into rooms for presentations, and walls for informational displays. The seating was very comfortable and durable - speakers could even stand on platforms. It was all recyclable after the event, but many planned to reuse theirs.                                                                                               Just think of the carbon saved in shipping lighter goods, the materials saved through recycled sourcing and recycling, the reduced toxins in those materials, and the powerful message it sends about thoughtfulness instead of consumption and flash.                                                                                                                                                      

 

Exhibit Production Recycling in Action

The Exploratorium is getting ready for a big move - from one repurposed building to a new one after 40+ years.  Their exhibit shop - which works in full view of the public - is pretty busy, but not too busy to recycle. 

They provide lots of bins in a designated area; the clearly segregate items and clearly mark obvious receptacles.  And they give away what they can.  Thanks Exploratorium.



Metal-only Recycling



Free Wood! This please-take-some box is out back of the Exploratorium. Anyone can use or repurpose wood scraps as needed.  This is great for the youngest one inspired by the exhibits inside...



Book Review: Sustainable Museums: Strategies for the 21st Century

Author - Rachel Mandan with case contributions from practitioners around the world.
Publisher - MuseumsEtc, Edinburgh See Book Details Here.
[This publisher  has a wide variety of global-perspective publications...keep an eye on them.]

Sustainable Museums provides solid foundational information for greening museums. It is a mix of the author’s work and a solid list of contributed cases from museums, trusts and agencies in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Denmark and Kenya.

After an introduction on the key events in literature and politics leading to the current state of sustainability worldwide, author Rachel Madan, a UK museum consultant and Executive Director of Green Museums, provides eight sections addressing the value and design of the foundation for greening your museum: vision, leadership, team development, impact assessment, strategy development, use of targets and milestones, developing policies and plans, and then communicating sustainability practices and messages.

She’s dead on when she points out how the world and the museum field has made too little progress on sustainability, and, sadly, I had to laugh and one of interviewees referring to green team situation as more of an ‘after school club’ than an agent of change. It’s true. Green teams have become common, but rarely do they mature past interest-group status to leadership teams.

Madan’s suggestions on developing vision, identifying barriers and ‘drivers for change’, and creating strategic communication methods and sustainability steering groups, caught my eye. I particularly like that in her suggestions, as well as the case studies, that there is very little green ‘bling’ and very much an emphasis on efficiencies, collaboration, and sound baseline information.

The sales pitch is a bit strong, but the author's solid experience, and the valuable cases, soften the advertisements. Among the cases’ great stories I found many valuable snippets I’d hope the field could emulate. If forced to choose favorites, here they are:

 Shedd Aquarium (US) has evolved from a Green Team to A Green Sustainability Department

 Minnesota Historical Society (US) is tackling a statewide, property-wide assessment for efficiencies

 National Gallery in Denmark creates carbon accounts for exhibits

 United Kingdom museums and trusts are benefitting from collaborative, government-supported, direct-delivery programs supporting energy reduction

 The Design Museum (England), uses a cross-comparison of audience datasets between “GreenAware” and “Mosaic” software for evaluating audience awareness of and commitment to green practice, and the correlation to museum interest and support.

 The highly-efficient Normandy American Cemetery Visitor Center honors the site by also using local materials, respectful profile and emotional planning.

 Renaissance South East’s (England) Green SLIME program (Science Links in Museum Education) for partnering with schools to advance environmental understanding and practice

 Hull House (US) and its Re-Thinking Soup program using local food to provide a weekly soup lunch for discussing food sustainability, security, and resourcefulness

They were a pleasure to read, and a shot of inspiration. Some days I feel I am banging my head against the wall, and others I feel at least I’m not doing it alone!

Museums in a Climate of Change - Part II

Climate Change Exhibits and Programs on Environmental Sustainability

Museums used to consider climate change discussions as advocacy – or at least far too close to it for comfort. Today, fewer feel that way and, as climate change discussions, TV programs and debate become ubiquitous, and green building and practices spread so rapidly, much of the public is hungry for green ideas no matter what kind of museum you are.

Each museum has to assess and make choices on interpreting green practices and telling green stories, but the climate change discussion is showing up in many ways all around museums.

If you’re thinking about an exhibit on climate change, check out Mark Walhimer’s blog http://climateexhibit.blogspot.com/, THE resource for exhibits on climate change. This is such a widespread museum theme that Mark was nearly overwhelmed with examples when he asked for recommendations on the Museum Design Group at LinkedIn. This blog entry collects those links exhibits around the world.

But what if you're not scheduled to do a big climate change exhibit? What if you haven't built (or don’t want to build) a state-of-the-art green building with bells and whistles to demonstrate - how do you talk about climate change?

If you’re a science or natural history museum in between climate change exhibits, you can create exhibit labels, branded with a “climate change facts” symbol, to install as a another layer of interpretation throughout current exhibits. Of course, if you’re into podcasts and audio tours, you can do it electronically. Or you can follow Museum of the Earth’s lead and create a Global Change Project Web Portal http://www.museumoftheearth.org/outreach.php?page=overview/globalchange.

If you're an historic site you can compare past sustainable practices - using a clothesline or convenient bushes to dry clothes; dumping wash water on the garden, not down a drain; sharing a bed for winter warmth - with nightcaps of course; a Victory Garden or an earlier kitchen garden with a little compost on the side and a lesson on saving seeds....you get the picture.

If you’re an army museum, you could interpret Army Green – the current science and practice of environmental sustainability in the US Army.

If you’re a general museum you could do an “I Spy” exhibit, or a matching objects exhibit showing energy-efficient collections items with object or images of today’s counterparts.

If you're an art museum you might post a mini exhibit in the entry-way or at the front desk that outlines the proceedings of the Plus/Minus Dilemma (my previous post). You might list your green choices in exhibit design. You might let the public know why you have motion-sensored gallery lights. It all shows that you care about your resources: those that are donated, those you preserve and interpret, and those of the community around you.

And don’t forget to offer the public some reading suggestions. I use some in my Green Museum class in the George Washington University Museums Studies Program:

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, North Point Press, www.fsgbooks.com.

The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists by Michael Brower and Warren Leon at Three Rivers Press, www.randomhouse.com.

And this year I’m adding Paleontological Research Institution’s (Museum of the Earth at Cornell University) Climate Change, Past, Present & Future: A Very Short Guide, by Warren Allmon and his team, www.priweb.org.
Anyone have other reading suggestions?

Don’t be shy about discussing climate change in your museum. We all share the same climate: highlighting our relationship with it is okay to do in public.