#RDNetwork: Sustainability in Museums
In January I had the supreme honour of taking over the CMP Twitter account to talk about all things sustainability in the cultural sector.
Conscious Creatives is one of the UK’s leading sustainability marketing agencies and there are four of us in the team based all over Cornwall. We believe in keeping sustainability simple but really educating organisations of all shapes and sizes to get to know what that word, sustainability, really means.
As members of the United Nations Global Compact part of our commitment is to advocate for organisations to use the Sustainable Development Goals as a framework for understanding sustainability. In this framework there are 17 goals and only one of us those is related to climate action. With another really important 16 goals, how can we shout from the rooftops that there has to be a bigger conversation in order to set the best strategy.
Having just finished up working with CMP on their strategy we were excited to talk to other organisations in the cultural sector to hear what they thought about sustainability.
We asked the following questions:
- What are the barriers preventing the cultural sector from leading the way in public engagement of sustainability?
- How can the cultural sector adapt its supply chain to meet the demands of a carbon neutral world?
- The UN Global Goals are a blueprint for a better future for all. Goal 10 recognises inequality as a barrier. What opportunities do museums have to support a more equal society?
- Sustainability is often thought of as just environmental issues. How can the cultural sector create more noise about the importance of social issues that need addressing too?
On a Friday night in lockdown there was no better place to be than on Twitter and thinking about global challenges and how to tackle them at a local level. We saw some brilliant insights from people on the CMP team and their followers. Here are some of the highlights from each question.
I think that it was evident from the conversations that there is still more to do for the cultural sector as a whole, while also some really exciting stuff happening too. Opportunities to figure out who in their supply chain is supporting a more sustainable future for all, getting more transparency and partnerships to create a combined effort.
In our world it’s often quite a hard job to get people excited about focusing on purpose over profit but the energy from those involved in the takeover gave me great hope that there is a revolution starting to happen in this sector with CMP and others leading the way!
– Mark Roberts, CEO Conscious Creatives
We’d like to say a huge thank you to Mark for hosting this wonderful takeover!