Environmental Guidelines: Opportunities and Risks (EGOR)

The National Archives' Collections Care Department, along with Tate and UCL Centre for Sustainable Heritage, have been awarded funding by the AHRC/ EPSRC Science and Heritage programme to support a research cluster: Environmental Guidelines: Opportunities and Risks (EGOR).

Bringing together researchers from the disciplines of arts and humanities, conservation, science and engineering, as well as practitioner communities, EGOR aims to investigate the implications for current environmental guidelines, standards and targets for the conservation of cultural heritage in a changing climate, including the associated risks and uncertainties facing the sector.

The main objectives of the cluster are to:

• identify research priorities
• determine the evidence required and where further study is needed
• provide a forum for lively debate and comparative thinking
• develop a coherent 'voice' that can usefully inform decision makers, standard setters and heritage practitioners
• transform the understanding of the costs and risks of current environmental standards, guidelines and targets on people, places and collections

Context

Current environmental parameters and tolerances set out in national and international guidelines, standards and legislation play a critical role in shaping practices in the cultural heritage sector. They inform how collections are stored, accessed, loaned and displayed as they provide a baseline for preservation activities, visitor comfort and access to collections locally, as well as internationally. They include the control of temperature, moisture, light and pollution - the main factors affecting the long-term conservation of material culture.

The implications for existing guidelines in the context of climate change and global responsibility have yet to be considered. With the increasing demand for sustainable strategies and the requirement to adapt to a changing climate, there are no easy answers to this problem: the risks need to be identified, the costs understood and the options appraised.

Research methodology

There will be three multi-disciplinary working groups addressing the questions and challenges within this theme.

Each working group will consider whether:

• Current environmental guidelines, standards and legislation provide a level of responsible stewardship, thus ensuring that our understanding of cultural values and identity continue and will be enhanced
• Global responsibility necessitates consideration of the implications of current guidelines, standards and legislation in the context of heavy reliance on fossil fuel energy sources.

Working groups will also consider some of the following themes and questions:

Working group 1: Collections
What are the implications for collections within current environmental guidelines, standards and legislation in a changing climate?

• How well do current environmental standards, guidelines and targets align with the conservation of movable heritage?
• Are current environmental parameters and tolerances defensible? If not, in which ways are they unacceptable?
• What are the metrics necessary to determine acceptable change?
• What technologies are needed to develop adaptive strategies?
• What is acceptable loss?

Working group 2: Buildings
What are the implications for heritage buildings, and buildings housing cultural collections (sometimes one and the same) within current environmental guidelines, standards and legislation in a changing climate?

• How well do current environmental, guidelines, standards, and sustainability targets align with the conservation of cultural heritage? 
• In what ways do current environmental guidelines, standards, and legislation align with historic structures? And with modern buildings? 
• What are the costs of current guidelines to built heritage? What are the costs of adapting buildings to achieve preservation environments? Are new builds preferable? 
• What are the passive technologies available as alternatives? Do passive control systems work, and if not why not? What technologies/materials might be available now or in the future which can provide energy efficiency and responsible stewardship?
• What can the building industry learn from the performance of historic buildings?

Working group 3: People
What are the implications for current environmental standards, guidelines, for people and communities who engage with cultural heritage? 

• What is the alignment between current standards, guidelines and targets for the human experience: people who visit and work in cultural heritage institutions?
• Do current standards enable a high degree of access to collections, locally and internationally?
• How might people respond to warmer working in the summer and cooler in the winter?
• How do visitors view losses to collections, how might this affect how we value cultural heritage?
• How might changing attitudes for reuse, renewable resources, and human adaptation to climate change alter access, presentation, and interpretation of cultural heritage in the future?

Key outcomes

Identify the themes and priorities for research needed to develop environmental guidelines, standards and legislation within the context of a changing climate

• Determine the evidence required to inform key critical research questions identified in this research cluster, gaps in the evidence, and the research priorities necessary to address them
• Transform understanding of the costs and risks of current environmental standards, guidelines and targets on people, places and collections
• Develop the critical research themes and questions emerging from this cluster and the means by which the research can be addressed 
• Identify the types and kinds of evidence and data necessary to inform the questions raised, gaps in the evidence and data, and areas of scholarly research necessary to fill them
• Create a dynamic communication network to engage a range of science and arts and humanities disciplines to engage with the scientific, technological, economic and social challenges posed by this cluster
• Report findings of the cluster and disseminate this to professional and academic communities, decision makers and Government agencies e.g. DEFRA, DCMS, BERR, MLA, CIBSE

Principal investigator

Nancy Bell, Head of Collections Care, The National Archives

Co-investigators

Stephen Hackney, Tate
Dr Leslie Carlyle, Tate
Dr Matija Strlic, Senior Lecturer, UCL Centre for Sustainable Heritage

Steering group

Nicholas Poole, CEO, Collection Trust
Sam Jones, DEMOS
Dr Nigel Blades, The National Trust
Kate Bellamy, National Museums' Directors Conference
Dr Jonathan Ashley-Smith, Author of Risk Assessment for Object Conservation

International contributors

Dr Eric Hanson, Chief Scientist, Library of Congress, USA
Stefan Michaliski, Sr. Conservation Scientist, Canadian Conservation Institute (Rome)

Key dates

Meeting	Venue	Date
Working group 1	Tate	25 March 2009
Working group 2	UCL	20 April 2009
Working group	The National Archives	6 May 2009
Residential meeting	West Dean College	8, 9 and 10 June 2009
Public Engagement Event: 'Price - No object!'	Royal Institution	22 October 2009

Contact

For more information, please call Loretta Pamment on 020 8392 5218 or email ResearchCluster@nationalarchives.gov.uk.

Related publications

Working Group 1

• How well do current environmental standards and guidelines align with the conservation of heritage? (PDF, 2795.80kb)

• Report on Working group 1 meeting at Tate (Word document, 44.50kb)

Working Group 2

• Report on Working group 2 meeting at UCL (Word document, 781.00kb)

Public Engagement Event

• Public Engagement Event: 'Price - No object!' (PDF, 62.80kb)

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