Sustainability and Public Museum Buildings

摘要

This paper looks first at the overarching UK government sustainability priorities and then follows that policy thread through to the Audit Commission's work on ranking the performance of local authorities. As publicly funded local authorities are the largest providers of museum services in the UK, the Audit Commission's requirements have a considerable effect on how those services are run. The paper examines the Comprehensive Performance Assessment mechanism and moves on to the forthcoming Comprehensive Area Assessment. It focuses in particular on the use of resources and the key lines of enquiry that underpin those judgements, and continues by examining the corporate response of local authorities to such sustainability and asset management targets, and its effects on museums. Three practical strategies of wider application than the UK alone are proposed for making savings and contributing to sustainability: a unified 'one museum' approach to conservation; better internal advocacy for collections management directed towards those who design, maintain and operate museum systems; and more effective training for responsible managers in the science of sustainability. For this last point, a 'demonstration museum' to serve as an exemplar on an international scale is proposed.