Getty’s PST ART Releases Largest-Ever Dataset on Climate Impact of Exhibition-Making

Getty announced today a new report on its inaugural PST ART Climate Impact Program, with baseline measurements about carbon emissions, material waste, and more from 40 exhibitions tied to the latest edition of the nation’s largest art event, PST ART.

The project creates the most expansive dataset on the carbon impact of exhibition-making and will inform the next edition of PST ART in 2030. It also jump-started greener exhibition practices among participating institutions, with many completing their first-ever climate impact report and taking concrete steps to reduce their carbon footprint.

Art museums have the highest average energy consumption of all cultural institutions in the United States, and the activities and materials connected to planning and mounting exhibitions are prime targets for reducing emissions and waste. While museums recognize data tracking is essential in order to take action, there has been little standardization for measuring the climate impact of exhibition practices. The regionwide collaboration created by PST ART offered a strong network to unify data reporting.

“Organizations of all sizes were eager to participate—from larger museums to university art galleries—and PST ART gave us all the chance to learn together and tackle these issues as a community,” said Joan Weinstein, director of the Getty Foundation. “You can’t reduce your carbon footprint if you don’t measure it, so data collection was a crucial first step. We were heartened to see how many partners across the region took this opportunity to try alternative methods and materials and commit to new eco-friendly exhibition practices right away.”

Many of the nearly 70 exhibitions in PST ART’s latest edition, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, were focused on themes of climate change and environmental justice. Getty responded to this common interest by rallying the community and developing the Climate Impact Program with the climate strategy firm LHL Consulting and its founder Laura Lupton along with artist Debra Scacco.

Participation in the program was voluntary, yet all PST ART partners joined at least one educational webinar led by LHL Consulting about climate impact reduction tactics and nearly every institution met with the LHL team one-on-one to receive support. LHL also provided climate action tools and a standardized reporting framework to the entire PST ART cohort, with more than two-thirds of the group completing reports.

“One thing that is abundantly clear is that art institutions want to take climate action. Some previously lacked the resources to begin, while others simply did not have the bandwidth to take on this work,” said Laura Lupton at LHL Consulting. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach, so we worked with Getty to ensure a welcoming community and reinforce with our PST ART partners that just by making an effort—big or small—they are making an impact.”

According to the report, flights were among the highest emissions, followed by air freight. Data analysis revealed that switching from air to sea travel for art transport could have reduced the total PST ART emissions by 18 percent. The total emissions—with just over half of all PST ART projects reporting—was 2,167 tCO2, which equates to enough carbon dioxide to power the electricity of 452 homes in the U.S. for an entire year.

The Climate Impact Program became a catalyst for change as partners prepared for their exhibitions, even though it was not an explicit goal to reduce PST ART’s carbon footprint. Some institutions chose to partner with local artists to reduce the need for travel and artwork shipping, including the University of California, San Diego and Birch Aquarium at Scripps. At Getty, curators opted for train travel instead of flying during research trips.

When it came to exhibition materials, 80% of partners implemented waste reduction strategies, with five institutions reporting zero waste to landfills and three using entirely reused and recycled materials. The Huntington opted to eliminate the use of drywall in favor of reusable plywood panels for temporary walls. The plywood walls have already been repurposed for at least five subsequent installations, saving the institution money in the long-term.

“During the run of our PST ART exhibition, ‘Storm Cloud: Picturing the Origins of Our Climate Crisis,’ we found that our involvement in the Climate Impact Program sparked meaningful conversations both with our visitors and among our own colleagues,” said The Huntington’s Melinda McCurdy, curator of British art, and Karla Nielsen, senior curator of literary collections. “The program offered resources and structure to think collectively and intentionally about the environmental impact of our temporary exhibitions, and it has pushed us to set a higher bar for our future work.”

Change was also possible for smaller museums, and curators at Craft Contemporary turned climate-conscious decisions into real budget savings. The team switched from vinyl to paper wall labels for their exhibition, a sustainable solution that reduced expenditures by $10,000. They also devised new packing methods to use less tape, and chose off-the-shelf, recyclable, and reusable materials whenever possible.

“The sustainability decisions for our PST ART exhibition have inspired Craft Contemporary to commit to a goal of producing zero waste exhibitions within five years,” reported the museum’s director Rody Lopez. “The response from our team and peer institutions is truly energizing. We’ve already hosted visits to share our methods and help spread the word that climate action is possible.”

Additional waste reduction efforts include Getty’s reuse of past exhibition seating and opting for QR codes instead of purchasing new video display monitors. The Lancaster Museum of Art and History and Self Help Graphics & Art reused exhibition walls from a previous display that were originally scheduled for demolition, avoiding landfill waste. The Wende Museum also reused past exhibition walls and display cases, consolidated art shipments, and created a new reusable art object label design—all of which helped them lower costs compared to previous exhibitions.

Many museums even reconsidered which vendors to work with for exhibitions. “Publications can generate harmful pollutants, so we chose Conti Tipocolor to produce our catalog because of their commitments to sustainable printing practices,” said Cassandra Coblentz, the independent curator behind the Oceanside Museum of Art’s “Transformative Currents” exhibition about art and environmental action in the Pacific Ocean. For the Hammer Museum’s exhibition catalog, they made sustainable production choices in collaboration with the graphic design studio Polymode. Another institution, Fulcrum Arts, invited the fabricator for two major installations in their “Energy Fields” exhibition co-presented with Chapman University to join Climate Impact Program educational webinars. As a result, the team at Studio Sereno switched to eco-friendly wood and sheep wool insulation, committed to complete reuse of all materials, and radically transformed their approach to fabrication for the future.

Getty is committed to continuing this work with partners for PST ART and has long been working towards greener practices, including its Managing Collection Environments initiative, which began in 2013 with the goal of advancing scientific research and field work for the sustainable management of collection environments in museums, libraries, and archives. Another initiative, Getty Global Art & Sustainability Fellows, is fostering a new generation of leaders focused on arts and sustainability through research and professional development. Getty also appointed its first sustainability director Camille Kirk in 2023 to help advance the institution’s sustainability goals. Read more news about sustainability at Getty.