April 22, 2026
As part of the AIC Sustainability Committee's efforts to connect with other organizations, we have invited Environment & Culture Partners to help us celebrate Earth Day by sharing their thoughts on the steps we can take to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
Creating a Culture of Climate Consciousness
By Al Carver-Kubik and Danielle Sakowski, Environment & Culture Partners
On this Earth Day, Environment & Culture Partners encourages you to create a culture of climate consciousness in your community of friends, colleagues, and workplace. Here we offer some thoughts on how to develop climate consciousness and influence change.
As the United States has seen major backslides in climate work in 2025 and 2026 due to the federal administration’s views on climate change favoring short-term economic gains and rolling back environmental policies, it is essential that we flex our individual and collective power to spur change. There has long been a debate over the impact of individual efforts versus corporate and government action (or inaction) to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Studies have shown that this is not a binary issue—we must implement change both from the bottom up and from the top down to lower global GHG emissions. Yes, corporations are the largest producers of GHG emissions, and most are unlikely to commit to reducing emissions without governmental policies forcing change. While our individual actions are a drop in the GHG emission bucket, modeling emissions and waste reduction in our daily lives and our workplaces has the power to raise our climate consciousness and change the ways in which we consume, vote, and talk about climate change. This, in turn, puts pressure on the government and corporations. Collectively, our drop in the bucket becomes a rising tide. Where do we start when it comes to making our own changes, and how do we motivate our colleagues and workplace administrators to build a culture of climate consciousness across our organizations?
Jim Reilly, founding director of Image Permanence Institute, often applied the adage “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” when discussing environmental monitoring of collections. We can approach assessing our climate impact in the same ways in which we approach environmental monitoring, by measuring emissions and waste and using that data to create a roadmap to change current behaviors; there are numerous online tools and resources available to measure GHG emissions (see the list later in this article).
Top-down Approach
At Environment & Culture Partners, we have established a top-down approach to track our carbon emissions. We set up a simple spreadsheet to track our GHG emissions associated with our home offices and our travel. We use the free, online tool Energy Star Portfolio Manager to track our household GHG emissions from energy usage, along with online calculators to estimate GHG emissions associated with various modes of travel and shipment of items like home office equipment. Recognizing that we cannot avoid all carbon emissions, we use carbon offsets to account for difficult-to-avoid emissions like flights to conferences. Tracking our emissions enables us to determine where offsets are appropriate and where we can set goals to reduce our impact.
There are debates regarding the purchase of carbon offsets, particularly those purchased by large corporations as a method of greenwashing. It is important to do your research and choose offset projects that follow established standards like the Verified Carbon Standard or the Gold Standard. There are also registries that ensure projects perform as expected (absorbing or reducing CO2 via proposed methods like solar, wind, reforestation etc.). Additionally, it can be beneficial to choose projects that benefit your local ecosystem and community. ECP’s home region is in the Pacific Northwest. We purchase carbon offsets through Bonneville Environment Foundation (BEF), a nonprofit located in Portland, Oregon. Our 2024 carbon emissions were offset with the Anew-Columbia River Forestry Project in Washington State, a 13,292-acre carbon sequestration project that maintains conifer forests in Southwest and Southcentral WA.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey California also took a top-down approach. The Aquarium has integrated sustainability into the institutional strategic plan as well as policies and daily operations. In 2025, the Monterey Bay Aquarium launched a sustainability campaign using a paid app that helps users track sustainable actions. This institutional push for collective climate consciousness is designed to be fun with point systems and staff challenges.
The Wright Museum in Detroit, Michigan is also taking a top-down approach at the community level. The museum is dedicated to climate justice and has become a leader in sustainability in the city of Detroit as well as serving as a national model. The museum has integrated environmental sustainability into its operations including energy usage, water usage and storm water diversion, and waste management. The Wright also partners with community groups, “bringing everyone to the table so that we can confront climate change and other detrimental issues directly, and effectively.”
As part of its top-down approach, the Wright Museum has a sustainability officer on staff to guide sustainability efforts. Not all cultural organizations have the resources to hire dedicated sustainability officers or climate consciousness at the administrative level. Developing a climate-conscious organization can start with individuals and small groups from the bottom-up.
Bottom-up Approach
A bottom-up approach to establishing a community of climate consciousness is by starting with “the man in the mirror,” to borrow from the famous 80’s song. Set up your own spreadsheet (who doesn’t love a spreadsheet!) and include the lifestyle parameters you are interested in monitoring such as home energy usage, water, daily transit, diet, and air travel. Once you have established a system, share with friends and colleagues to create a community. Here are links to several carbon calculators to help you move forward with building your own spreadsheet and measuring your personal climate impact:
While zero GHG emissions and waste are commendable, reduction is the goal. Setting goals to zero isn’t practical in modern society and can easily feel discouraging. Instead, how low can you go? Have a group think about ways to reduce emissions and create a roadmap for change.
Some suggestions are:
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Set your thermostat to be seasonally a little lower or higher
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Low-cost improvements to your living space to increase energy efficiency
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Make three vegan meals a week
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Purchase as much locally sourced food as possible
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Compost food (outdoor or indoor worm bin)
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Join local no waste groups rather than buying new
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Bike or walk if applicable
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Hang clothes to dry
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Fly with environmentally responsible airlines
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Write one letter a week, month, or quarter to local, state, or federal legislators to advocate for climate action
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Buy into wind or solar energy through your electric provider if possible
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Purchase carbon offsets
With your newfound enthusiasm and systems for measuring and monitoring GHG emissions, work with your workplace administration to implement GHG emission measuring and monitoring within the institution. An energy audit is a great place to start. The resulting report provides recommendations for improvement. Setting up a free Energy Star Portfolio Manager account is another good start. Log your institution’s energy use from the energy bills. Once data is entered, the site produces a report on emissions.
Your organization can use this data to take a systems thinking approach considering the impacts and costs of capital improvements and GHG reduction benefits and return on investment. A motivating factor is energy savings comes with fiscal savings. Then, from the top-down, the administration can encourage staff to measure, monitor, and reduce emissions.
Once individual and collective emissions are measured, put GHG emissions into perspective using equivalencies. This is a great way to visualize and understand GHG emissions. For example, a 75,000 square foot museum in New York City maintaining strict setpoints of 70°F and 50% RH uses about 42106.62 therms of natural gas annually which produces 223 metric tons of carbon dioxide. This is equivalent to 52 gasoline powered passenger vehicles driven for one year. It would require 3,684 tree seedlings grown for 10 years to sequester one year of carbon emitted by this museum.
We hope this article has inspired you to make an Earth Day resolution to start on the path to GHG emission reduction. Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect, just better.
Get in touch with us! We want to hear about your path to climate consciousness! How is it going? What has worked and what hasn’t worked?
Email us at hello@ecprs.org.
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