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Worth Noting

Bizot Green Protocol: AIC Endorsement and Update

The Sustainability Committee is starting the new year off by celebrating the AIC Board’s recent endorsement of the most recent 2023 version of the Bizot Green Protocol:

The American Institute for Conservation (AIC) recognizes that the climate crisis is an increasing threat to cultural heritage and the world. Evidence has irrefutably shown that carbon emissions play a significant role in causing the crisis. With this urgency in mind, AIC recognizes the value of The Bizot Green Protocol and supports collective adoption and implementation efforts to improve sustainability and reduce the environmental impact of cultural heritage preservation and conservation. The protocol and associated guidelines offer science-based principles, call for proactive and strategic engagement, and lay the groundwork for holistic change.

—AIC Board Statement, November 19, 2024

The Bizot Group, which was also known as the “International Group of Organizers of Major Exhibitions” originated in the early 1990s. Named after its founding organizer Irene Bizot, former head of France’s national museum organization Réunion des Musées Nationaux, this informal group of leaders from major institutions around the world began gathering yearly to address mutual concerns. Costs associated with loans were on this list, which has led to a re-evaluation of required environmental parameters in loan agreements. The first protocol by the group with recommendations to expand environmental set points was published in 2014, and they committed to re-assessing and publishing revised recommendations every five years with increasing collaboration from scientific leaders in the art conservation community. For a review of the various iterations of the protocol, check out our March 2024 issue of Sustainability Now.

The newest iteration is a call to consider the most sustainable option first in all aspects of conservation work and practice. Some of these efforts include the need to:

• Reconsider requiring blanket narrow environmental set points for all objects in collections
• Look at increasing the use of microclimates for sensitive collections
• Reassess how we weigh risks, moving towards incorporating a better understanding of materials and their sensitivity to environmental parameters
• Question the value of maintaining illusion in facilities reports, instead valuing full transparency about facilities conditions
• We are also asking the entire AIC community to collaborate across departments and rethink:
• Shorter exhibition schedules as a desirable option
• Borrow and lend fewer items to reduce transport costs and impact
• Re-think one-off exhibit design materials and bespoke applications

Fig. 1. The timeline above shows a brief snapshot of how museum climate parameters evolved among preservation professionals. For a more detailed history, check out the Environmental Guidelines on the AIC Wiki. (See the pdf on page 23 for interactive links in the figure)

Valid concerns around the risks involved when expanding environmental parameters have been voiced since the topic first arose in the early 1990s. A significant amount of research since then indicates that many artifacts can tolerate larger fluctuations than previously thought, but this is not to say that climate control should be thrown out the window:

That most museum objects can tolerate, without mechanical damage, larger fluctuations than previously thought is not an excuse to abandon climate control. To the contrary, there always will be some materials and objects that require conditions different from or more tightly controlled than the main collection. Standard approaches like the use of microclimates and buffered cases are appropriate for such exceptions. If anything, the relaxation of the allowable RH fluctuations for the general environment requires more thought and a better knowledge of the materials, history, and requirements of the collection. Erhardt, D. et al 1995

The lack of transparency in facilities reports during loan negotiations appear to be a large hurdle in relaxing environmental parameters. This not only reflects on our ethical standards but also has “hard and fast” pragmatic consequences. We encourage you to read Jonathan Ashley-Smith’s call for transparency from 1994. And as Stefan Michalsky pointed out in 2007:

“The value of proofed fluctuation makes it clear that denial of any past poor climate control in a museum is extremely counterproductive during risk assessment, since the more optimistic (small) are the stated fluctuations of the past, the higher the estimate of future risk.”

The Bizot Green Protocol is a call to shift our lens. This is a call to zoom out and incorporate the direct impact our decisions have on energy consumption and carbon emissions, and in turn on climate change. As Dr. Joelle Wickens astutely points out in her recent JAIC article “Preventive Conservation: Continuously Defining Itself at the Crossroads of Theory and Practice” :

“....we discover together that we find “best practice” solutions at the intersection of environmental, social, and economic concerns. If our goal is to make an object last as long as possible then we must consider the preservation of the earth. If we focus on taking care of an object in a way that shortens the life of the earth, then it doesn’t seem like we are making the object last as long as possible.”

***For a review of the protocol and associated handbooks, check out our March 2024 issue of Sustainability Now***

So we look to our colleagues and across disciplines for guidance on how to navigate our new climate crisis-induced realities. We reassess our current paradigms and reevaluate if there is a better way. Guidelines such as the recently refreshed Bizot Green Protocol can help us reflect upon how we can pilot more sustainable choices. Viewed as a work in progress, the protocol and associated handbooks are re-visited every 5 years and are adjusted according to current realities.

As conservation practitioners it is our responsibility to both our planet and the collections we serve to actively participate in drawing down our energy consumption and carbon emissions. Please join us in collaborating with all other stakeholders involved as we navigate through this process ethically and responsibly.

—Yadin Larochette, Co-Chair, Sustainability Committee, yadinl@gmail.com

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