Cultural organizations are models and voices for climate action and can inspire and enable change. As educational and charitable members of communities worldwide, climate action aligns with the mission of all cultural organizations –museums, historic sites, libraries, zoos, and aquariums, etc. Climate action is successful if it is implemented at a systems and behavior level, and in collaboration, across all departments in an organization and with external community stakeholders.

Cultural organizations are contributors to climate change and can implement mitigation, adaptation, and resilience activities to decrease their own carbon footprints. This could be through increasing energy efficiency, clean energy generation, waste management, water reclamation, zero-waste exhibitions, and much more. For example, energy efficiency is one of the first places that cultural organizations can begin to decrease their carbon footprint. With the need to regulate temperature for collections, exhibitions, human comfort, and sometimes living collections, the amount of energy consumed by cultural organizations is extremely high. The Carbon Inventory Project estimated that if the entire cultural sector decreased their emissions by 50%, it would be equivalent to 5 natural-gas fired power plants or 452,000 passenger vehicles which is more than all the registered vehicles in the entire state of Maine (415,725). Replacing incandescent light bulbs with LEDs, replacing outdated HVAC systems with efficient systems, installing building management systems that automatically manage when lights turn on, and even ensuring energy-efficient electronics (e.g., those that are EnergyStar certified) are all ways cultural organizations can decrease their energy use. In addition, organizations can consider integrating climate action into their overall strategy and across operations by creating a climate action plan. Organizations can learn about what other organizations are doing by exploring The Climate Toolkit.