Environmental Sustainability

We are part of Leeds City Council’s Best City Ambition, which encompasses the ambition to become a net zero city by 2030. Environmental sustainability is embedded in our service strategy Deepening Connections, Widening Impact and threads through all our work.

Working with colleagues across Europe, Leeds City Council have signed an international commitment for low carbon and more inclusive culture known as Eurocities /Lille Call to Action (C2A). Leeds City Council endorsed 13 of the listed priorities within the Lille Call to Action at the Eurocities Culture Forum in Birmingham, October 2023.

Sustainable exhibitions

Life on Earth Gallery - Conference space

We aspire to ensure messaging is embedded throughout displays and exhibitions to help inform and guide visitors’ attitudes and behaviour towards the climate crisis. This is also reflected within key galleries across several of our venues, including Life on Earth (natural sciences collection) at Leeds City Museum.

In 2017 our approach to temporary exhibitions shifted and sustainability was put at the heart of our practice, underpinned by an Environmental Sustainability Plan. That year we won a Museums Change Lives award in the category of environmental sustainability at the Museum Association Awards for our exhibition ‘Beavers to Weavers: The Wonderful World of Animal Makers’.

Heritage buildings

Leeds Industrial Museum

In recent years we have benefited from improving the efficiency of our buildings. This includes things like installing solar panels at Leeds Discovery Centre, installing a biomass boiler at Lotherton and rolling out a programme of LED lighting across venues. We have also benefited from the Central Government’s Public Sector Decarbonisation funding and three of our venues have been connected to the Leeds Pipes (a district heating scheme linked back to the Leeds Recycling and Energy Recovery Facility).