Cities have the greatest carbon footprint. That's a constant reality that we're facing now. Cities are the point where we need to start renovating and becomming more aware of how we can change that environment so we can reduce our carbon footprint.
What's exciting about this project is that it's the perfect example of the opportunity and the possibility to retrofit buildings to make them more environmentally sustainable. The Royal Exhibition Building is a fantastic example of the intersection between heritage and contemporary and future needs.
The Royal Exhibition Builidng is a World Heritage site, which acknowledges its long line of demonstrating and displaying and educating the broader community about the latest innovation and strategies for living. And here we have the perfect example that follows on that tradition, and is integrated in a beautiful way with this heritage site.
The museum's been committed to reducing its environmental impact for a number of years now and it's very much part of the way in which we make decisions about how we function as an organisation. If we start from the inside - the back of house - we've been reviewing everything that we do and how we do it.
There's a whole range of strategies that we're using internally to reduce our carbon footprint. We're introducing a bike fleet for staff; we're overhauling the way in which we develop and design exhibitions to reduce their carbon impact; we're reducing our water use, our energy use; we're reviewing how and in what way we use paper; we're reducing our waste.... developing strategies to minimise our impact across a whole range of areas like that.