Statement of Intent on Sustainability, resolved at the General Meeting of the AEOM in Skanzen/ Szentendre, Hungary, 22. August 2024
AEOM released a Statement of Intent on Sustainability
Early this year, the AEOM board launched a new working group on sustainability in open air museums. It is led by Jens Scheller from Heesenpark, Germany. During the General Meeting in Szentendre, Hungary, on 22nd of August 2024, the group introduced and AEOM members validated a statement of intent, which explains the role of open air museums in addressing climate change and biodiversity crisis and declares a commitment of the association to take action.
There is an existential threat to the world, and we have an ethical obligation to take action to alleviate the damage caused by the climate and biodiversity crisis and protect our natural environment.
Open-air museums can, and should, be part of the critical infrastructure needed to fight climate change – our sites, historic houses, gardens, fields, and livestock, are particularly exposed to changing climate conditions and increasing extreme weather conditions. By preserving the cultural heritage of peoples everyday lives, the development of civilisation is depicted – we are places of learning, visualising traditions that have lived for centuries, but also how our past has created the climate crisis we now find ourselves in.
In looking after our cultural heritage for future generations, open-air museums are uniquely placed to take a perspective beyond the short-term cycles of politics and economics. We intend not only to conserve the collections entrusted to us, but to use them to illustrate the necessary transition towards a sustainable future and motivate our visitors to participate in shaping it.
We are already around or beyond crucial tipping points. Human influence has warmed the climate at a rate that is unprecedented in at least the last 2000 years. Crippling heat is everywhere. Billions of people around the world are wilting under increasingly severe heatwaves driven largely by a fossil-fuel charged, human-induced climate crisis. (Ref. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2023).
Open-air museums are in a prominent position to actively address the current climate and biodiversity crisis and its consequences on society. We call upon politicians, and internal and external stakeholders in our own countries, to accelerate action to mitigate this crisis before it is too late.
Many museums have collections relating to the Earth’s five previous mass extinction events, and we are now amid the sixth, the Anthropocene. AEOM members have an ethical obligation to take action to alleviate that damage, and as such, AEOM members are asked to agree to:
- use relevant collections, programmes, and exhibitions to engage audiences with the climate and biodiversity crisis and inspire them to reflect and take positive action
- introduce more sustainable museum management, including using collections disposal more actively
- develop and implement decarbonisation plans for open-air museums
- undertake measures to mitigate the impacts of climate change and extreme weather, and develop solutions to adapt to these challenges
- increase biodiversity in our green spaces and across our open-air museums
- take responsibility for ensuring relevant training and experience is provided across our open-air museums to ensure best practice
(Aligned with and inspired by the UK Museum COP statement adopted by NMDC members in 2023)