Science Museum Group Sustainability Policy
Climate change is the most urgent threat and challenge facing humanity and is integral to the Science Museum Group’s mission to Inspire Futures.
The science of climate change is clear. Radical decarbonisation across all sectors is needed to keep global temperature rises below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century, as set out in the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) 1.5 report, October 2018.
Our programme on climate change and sustainability will focus on how science and engineering has been and is driving current technological and nature based solutions towards reducing the impacts of climate change.
Our collection reflects the scientific innovations which have made the world we have today. Intrinsic to these stories is the impact of innovation on the natural world, in particular climate change.
We are uniquely placed to inspire our audiences of 5 million who visit our sites each year and our 11 million digital audience to explore the impact of our past and the opportunities for our future.
To inspire futures, we are scientific in our approach to sustainability, being data led and embracing technology and innovation and using international consensus climate science from the IPCC.
We have worked with external advisers to calculate our carbon footprint for 2019/20 and have committed to net zero by 2033 underpinned by science-based absolute emission carbon reduction targets that are consistent with the Paris agreement of limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
We are decarbonising our scopes 1 and 2 carbon emissions (such as electricity, water, gas & biomass) and our scope 3 emissions (including our supply chain, waste, business travel and investments) by 59% by 2033. We will also remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through tree planting to reach net zero.
We are also committed to reduce, reuse, refuse and recycle and using resources more efficiently, while still investing in and developing our estate in a sustainable way.
Building on our carbon emissions reductions over the past decade, we will move forward with the intention of leading public engagement in the UK on the science of climate change and the technological and nature based challenges and opportunities around energy and food transitions and greenhouse gas removals.
We are committed to working with funders who are also on a journey to decarbonise.
We will do this by assessing prospective and current partners using the independent Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI) tool and asking them to: Achieve Level 4 on the TPI Management Quality index link (TPI rates companies from 0 – 4*) by the end of March 2023; Achieve alignment with the Paris 1.5 degree pathway on TPI’s Carbon Performance index by the end of March 2024.
