Assessing the environmental impact of your building and operations can not only help you meet organisational commitments to sustainability, but can also reduce running costs and increase efficiency.
PAS 198 is the new specification for managing environmental conditions for cultural collections developed with input from The National Archives. This builds on the Environmental Guidelines: Opportunities and Risks (EGOR) project. The new specification takes into account changes in scientific understanding of the preservation needs of different materials and the greater emphasis on using energy.
The following resources may be helpful:
- BREEAM: the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method for sustainable building design, construction and operation
- Council for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) Sustainable Places: provides useful resources for designing and running sustainable buildings including landscaping, transport, energy and water use, and waste management
- Heritage Lottery Fund: Planning greener heritage projects, 2009: for anyone with a heritage project involving capital or conservation work, it outlines the environmental impacts that are likely to be important on different sized and types of projects
- Museums Association: Helping museums go green project, 2011: case studies, resources and discussions2