The Sage Project: Sustainable Arts & Green Ecosystems
Leading climate action and circularity in the arts sector
The cultural sector has both obligations and opportunities to create public dialogue, education, and systemic change addressing the global climate crisis.
The Museum of Vancouver (MOV) is actively involved with the Coalition of Museums for Climate Justice and is an early adopter of Creative Green Tools Canada (Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts).
An experienced cultural institution, MOV is among museums and galleries committed to shifting to new models of sustainability and climate action, focusing on the design and building of exhibitions and other types of staged environments in the cultural sector.
Having experimented with upcycling and circular economy practices in previous exhibitions, in 2023 MOV launched the Sustainable Arts and Green Ecosystems (SAGE) to engage the museum, gallery, and theatre sectors to collaborate on initiatives and solutions to advance the environmental performance, reduce greenhouse gas (GhG) emissions, and design and manage for circular materials use.
Exhibition development: The five elements for circular and low carbon solutions.
SAGE draws on multiple experts and partners within the sector and beyond. The questions driving the SAGE initiative are as follows:
How can we plan, design, build and unbuild (or disassemble) exhibitions to avoid and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, avoid and minimize waste, and enable materials reuse?
What materials can we use that have lower global warming potential (GWP), use less water and avoid harmful chemicals in production?
How can we promote the adoption of innovative exhibition development practices to reduce the environmental impact of museums, art galleries, and theatres?
The SAGE Project (2023-2025) has three key deliverables:
SAGE Toolkit: An online platform with guidelines for planning, design, materials selection, construction, and de-construction of exhibitions and staged events.
SAGE Hub: An online inventory management system coupled (ideally) with physical space for SAGE partner organizations to store and trade used materials in order to reduce waste and keep materials in circulation.
A Demonstration Exhibition: An exhibition that is planned, designed, and constructed following the SAGE Toolkit guidelines that will model the use of lower-carbon materials and circular practices.
For more information on SAGE please contact:
MOV Director of Collections and Exhibitions & SAGE Lead: Viviane Gosselin
Sustainability Consultant and SAGE Project Manager: Maureen Cureton
MOV is grateful to the Canada Council for the Arts for their support, and to SAGE partners and allies for their expertise, ideas, and openness to collaboration and innovation:
