Milano's Cultural Institutions Lead on Environmental Sustainability

Museo Poldi Pezzoli director Annalisa Zanni prioritizes sustainable exhibition design, reusing materials and working with environmentally conscious architects. The museum, through Federica Manoli, participates in ICOM Lombardy's working group on recycling and sharing exhibition materials. Zanni states that obtaining environmental certification is now urgent for cultural institutions. Converso, a nonprofit exhibition space in a deconsecrated church, minimizes waste through careful planning and energy-efficient systems, reflecting the ethos of its parent architecture firm Locatelli Partners, which pioneered 3D-printed housing from recycled cement. Milan's culture councilor Filippo Del Corno reports the city is developing a cross-departmental action plan for museum sustainability, building on post-Expo 2015 tools that currently only indirectly affect museums. The city collaborates with AMAT on a sustainable events protocol and launched the successful Milanoplasticfree initiative in February 2019 to reduce plastic use in bars and clubs. The culture department also joined the GreenFEST project with ANCI Lombardy to promote green public procurement in cultural activities. These three examples from Milan illustrate how museums can lead public engagement with environmental issues, though broader research is needed.