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Sustainable Collections Care
Sustainable collections care is the practice of providing environmentally friendly and energy efficient options for the care of cultural heritage in museums. This includes using alternative energy sources for controlling relative humidity [RH] and temperature, using alternative lighting sources that are both energy saving and less damaging, designing sustainable architecture specifically for conservation environments, using low- volatile organic compound materials, reusing housing materials, and recycling where possible.

A global perspective
With the growing interest in sustainable practices and protecting the environment, museums have also begun to look into  green protocols for their facilities. Essentially, a museum is dedicated to preserving the past for future generations, and as Brophy and Wylie (2013) put it in their book The Green Museum, museums are taking an interest in protecting their environment because the planet can be seen as "the ultimate housing for collections" and green initiatives can be seen as "the ultimate in preventive conservation."

Alternative energy sources
Running a museum's day to day activities takes a lot of energy, especially considering the energy taxing area of collections care. Efficient and self-sufficient energy use is important to reduce the heavy carbon footprints that collections care can impose. A large part of collections care is that of preventive conservation, "preventing or slowing the deterioration of objects through control of the collections environment." This generally includes the heavy energy uses, such as that of a heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system to regulate the environment and provide the best conditions to preserve cultural heritage artifacts, for example. To become more self sufficient and reduce the carbon footprint of their institutions, some museums have found greener sources of energy. The LEED certified | Brooklyn Children's Museum, for example, uses both geothermal energy to heat and cool the building as well as photovoltaic panels built into the exterior of the building to provide some of the energy needed for lighting. Chicago's Field Museum also uses a large 99.4 Kilowatt photovoltaic solar array on its roof to harvest cleaner energy, and reduces it's air conditioning energy consumption with a chiller/thermal storage system. Another example of a green museum renovation to increase sustainability and become self sufficient is Gibson Mill in the United Kingdom. Run by the National Trust, Gibson Mill generates all its own power and uses a gravity fed water source from a local spring in addition to composting its own waste. These mark just a few examples of the push for greener energy sources across the globe.

Architectural design with conservation in mind
Through renovation and creative architectural design, museums have begun to find more ways to become greener. Some new museums and museums looking to renovate are seeking architects who will build with sustainability in mind, using green roofs, like at Oakland Museum of California, building into the terrain itself, or using high efficiency heating and cooling mechanisms, like at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, with the goal to receive highly ranked Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certifications. The Getty Conservation Institute advises conservators to be early collaborators with new architectural design plans to ensure that conservation is accounted for and integrated into the design that requires creativity to meet the demands of both preventive conservation and reduced energy consumption.

Lighting
When considering lighting, museums look at the potential their choices have to damage light sensitive materials, the way the light affects the viewers' perception of color, and, increasingly, energy efficiency. With the relatively new technology of LED lights, museums can now benefit from the energy efficiency they offer. However, the selection is taken carefully among the various types of LEDs to ensure they are not damaging to their cultural material. Another option to reduce the energy use of lighting within a museum is to take advantage of natural lighting, but in this case special UV filtering films need to be used to protect the collection.

Materials
Exhibit designers, curators, collections managers and conservators are increasingly looking to find environmentally friendly materials for use in museums as well as finding ways to recycle and reuse them. In contemporary museum and exhibit design, sustainability has now become a key component when assessing what materials to use. Prominent institutes for conservation, such as the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, often provide webpages dedicated to aiding in how to reuse and recycle materials. Other considerations in regards to materials include the use of low-volatile organic compound materials, choosing renewable materials in place of those that deplete natural resources, and finding biodegradable options for those materials that will essentially end up as waste.