Sustainable museums – what it means to us?

Sustainable museums - what it means to us?

All pictures here!

Aims of the meeting:

• Defining problems occurring in various institutions and opportunities for regular exchange of experiences (which will lead to building a network of involved people, a kind of territorially dispersed "observatory");
• Checking the possibility of establishing a consortium of institutions that pursue common goals and can jointly apply for EU grants for a joint research and development project;
• Defining ways to increase the awareness of the local community through educational and information activities for sustainable development.

In 2015, all 193 UN member states unanimously adopted the resolution Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes 17 goals relating not only to the environment or ecology, but also to human beings: their behaviour, education, work, life. Let us add that in the ICOM STRATEGIC PLAN 2022–28, three of the five points in the section “our commitment” relate to the environment: “We work for the protection of cultural and natural heritage”, ”We address decolonisation and climate change and work for the sustainability of our sector in post–Covid world” and, let us add: “in times of struggling post-totalitarianisms that negatively affect the living environment (habitat)”. Thus, goal 13 of the Agenda (Climate Action) is included in the ICOM strategy as the third focus area Climate Change, because “Museums are recognised as trusted sources of knowledge and valuable resources for engaging communities to imagine and create sustainable future for our planet” (ICOM’s Resolution on Sustainability, Kyoto 2019). The above cited documents demonstrate that the context of civilisational crisis is typical of all museums in the world. Let us exchange experiences and improve our work by building ARRE cooperation programmes and projects. The workshop – Technical meeting – will initiate building the position of royal residence museums as important stakeholders in sustainable development policies with access to adequate funding. It can also be the starting point of a project that, with the possible EU funding, will allow us to do more, in each of the residences, as well as to promote our activities on the European forum. When thinking about this goal, it is difficult not to mention the concept of extended museum. By using this term, we are expressing our willingness to extend the scope of observation not only to the boundary of our own activity, but much further, also examining the impact of the surroundings, e.g. the neighbourhood, public space, social life.