The rare moment when doing the right thing aligns with economic sense
The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed widespread suffering on people, labor, and budgets around the world for well over a year now. Amidst all the friction between seemingly binary choices, it has also sparked some creative fires in our art and artifact wilderness that appear to acknowledge that this extraordinary moment aligns economic incentives with sustainability practices like a summer solstice on a clear day at Stonehenge.
For too long we have wanted to incorporate more environmentally friendly practices into our procedures for managing and exhibiting our collections but often regretfully cited the cost as the primary impediment. Accompanying that economic disincentive, a lack of clear alternative solutions, though cheaper, did not instill confidence in our collections practice or we could just displace the costs onto the borrower which they reciprocate and which perpetuates the practice. The pandemic, however, has softened this uncompromising rationale through institutional budget cuts, travel restrictions, and flight scarcity (to name a few) which, consequently, make more sustainable options plausible as they align with budget constraints.
This notion of sustainability should not solely focus on our carbon footprint either. If we choose to see it holistically, the incentives multiply further and the changes make more enduring sense, too. This is the eclipse of economy and sustainability we have longed for and this makes the moment special and worth celebrating. Shipping and exhibiting objects becomes more economically sustainable, more efficient, and more environmentally sustainable. All of these factors result in more accessible collections, too because, once the cost of loaning them falls, more institutions can afford to borrow them.
The most glaring example of the dissonance between environmental sustainability and impracticality is the courier trip. If we are honest with ourselves, we stewards of the world’s patrimony lived for courier trips: escorting objects around the world at a borrower’s expense and tacking on several days of personal vacation at the end. In part these travel perks often justify a lackluster salary and serve as exchanges of knowledge between professional colleagues. They cost a lot, however, because borrowers cover the costs of airfare, hotels, and per diems for often multiple lenders. Personally, I have even traveled to exhibitions with 20 or more couriers who all have had their long-haul business class seats paid, their supposedly 3-star hotels booked, and their institutionally-enveloped per diems handed to them in half-installed galleries by borrowing institutions. We all accepted these extreme exhibition expenses as sometimes necessary but also often ludicrous, and, this “best practice” stubbornly resisted any change despite years of compromise talk. They also bear an opportunity cost by preventing staff from performing on-site work while they travel.
It took this global pandemic to make us walk the plank, and now we must learn to gracefully flip and twist before hitting the water. The great news is that we adeptly and immediately developed a protocol for doing so – almost as if we were waiting for this moment. Of course, institutions closed, but travel restrictions and quarantines protagonized the situation more than anything. We literally could not send our staff with our objects if we tried. As a result, we found an alternative in bookend couriers, that supervise our collections on our behalf and eliminate the courier expense in favor of the much smaller expense of a contractor’s time. They also dispense with tons and tons of carbon emissions from booked flights with determined registrars and conservators on board. We Stonehenged the moment: the sun of sustainability optimistically glares through the posts and lintels of fiscal responsibility.
When this rare event knocks, do not fear opening the door. Seize the moment to make lasting change to your institution. It may not come around more than once in your career. Recognize you chance to make a difference.
Yes, I recognize that I am just talking about couriers in this example but this one practice can have a significant and immediate effect with the least amount of sacrifice. The other major factors in resource expenditure and emissions resulting from collections care remain the buildings and the climatized spaces where we store and the actual methods of transportation of objects.
We use a lot of energy and resources to maintain specially climatized spaces and with bespoke systems to safely exhibit and care for various types of objects. We can change our bulbs to LEDs and try to adjust our interior building envelopes according to exterior conditions and thus reduce our dependence on HVAC machinery and their strain on the grid and budget, but we can only do so much here. Not everyone can build new or adapt old buildings for greater efficiency. In addition, not everyone agrees with, for example, permitting greater variance in environmental conditions beyond 70 degrees Fahrenheit and 50% relative humidity. That, however, is a discussion for another day.
Further, some have looked to sea freight as an alternative to air freight offering a greater reduction in carbon emissions. However, this exemplifies the dissonance between economics, practicality, and carbon footprints. Sea freight does emit less carbon but requires much greater advance planning and objects spend weeks instead of hours in transit. Further, a lack of availability of refrigerated containers and current delays in transit only exacerbate the impracticality of it all. I predict that we will have fleets of electric trucks before we adopt this practice en masse.
With bookend couriers, we make a big impact now. I do think, however, that we should continue to include and refine all options because as a group they will all help sustain an eternal economic eclipse. Other candidates for Stonehenge-ing the moment, reusable crates, digital condition reports (because, of course, you have to exchange them with a bookend courier), and greater consolidation of shipments.
In addition, we should celebrate the fact that we can finally take action on an issue that has long plagued our conscience. I just hope that entire institutions and not just their collections stewards do their part.
