ARA Environmental Sustainability Group - Review of 2025
ARA Environmental Sustainability Group Review of 2025
This year has been a busy one for the group. The focus has been on building on the successful development and launch of the Carbon Literacy Shareable Course for Archives, Records and Special Collections. This was a collaboration between The UK National Archives, Lorraine Finch, founder of LFCP with contributions from the ARA Environmental Sustainability Group. During the course of the year, our Research Officers have been very active with Carbon Literacy, becoming certified trainers, planning and delivering sessions locally and across the sector. In January 2026, ARA will take over facilitation of Carbon Literacy training to the sector and the ARA Environmental Sustainability Group will deliver its first session for the ARA.
The group contributed to the review of both the ARA Competency Framework and the Archive Service Accreditation standard. These place a greater responsibility on ARA members to embed sustainability into their strategic planning, operational activity and professional ethical behaviour, through the revised Code of Ethics.
Events
In October, the group held an online event in collaboration with the Places, Plants and People Archives Network. The session explored how archives, heritage, and research organisations are addressing sustainability and environmental engagement. Speakers shared insights ranging from engaging multicultural communities and building sustainable practices in major institutions, to case studies on solar panel retrofitting and the archival legacies of environmental scientists.
Research Officer activity
Our Research Officers have been busy, both collectively on Carbon Literacy training and certification, and individually to promote sustainability across the sector. This has included
Alasdair Bachell, one of our Research Officers, has given several conference papers exploring the significance of collections related to the history of Scottish hydropower, and their value for the future as we face the challenges of global climate change.
Amy Cawood, group secretary, ran an academic workshop highlighting how archive and heritage collections can be used to support teaching on climate and sustainability.
Amy attended the Green Libraries Conference in October.
Stacey Anderson, our Research Officer based at The Box, Plymouth, has focussed on advocacy and training activity, including an upskilling/knowledge exchange programme for archives across the South West. This incorporated a focus on sustainability in archives and demonstrated the power of presenting to peer professionals as a way of inspiring them. In addition, she has presented at a variety of conferences and workshops, most recently on Audio Visual archives and sustainability in Paris. She attended the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) where she participated in the basic learning programme and raised profile of sustainable digital archiving. She also attended the TNA DALE (Digital Archives Learning Exchange) session with a focus on digital decarbonisation.
The group’s Chair, Georgina Robinson, has contributed to an education programme to develop oracy skills in year 9 students, using the school archives as a case study. Students were tasked with devising environmentally sustainable solutions for the permanent preservation of archives, interviewing relevant professionals and formulating arguments to create a poster, finally presenting their ideas to a panel of 'dragons.'
The Liverpool University Centre for Archive Studies, through the work of Alex Buchanan, has continued to be involved with research and practice relating to the Climate Emergency.
One of our Research Officers, Alex Buchanan, has supported a PhD student, Claudio Ogass Bilbao, who is a founder member of the ICA Climate Change Working Group (2025). This group is developing a risk mapping tool for archivists faced with the climate emergency. A link will be provided on the ARA web pages once the tool is live. The group was introduced at an Open Forum, recorded and available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4c_5XDHFf0.
The University of Liverpool has been awarded AHRC Doctoral Focal funding for PhD research in the area ‘Living Well with Water’, alongside the University of Hull and in collaboration with the National Trust, Royal Geographical Society and the Tate. The project tackles the growing challenge of water-related risk in deprived coastal and estuarine communities, from an interdisciplinary perspective. Archivists who might want to support collaborative doctoral research in this area should contact Alex, alexb@liverpool.ac.uk.
Alex Wade, Research Officer, and Conservator at the Historic Dockyard, Chatham, has been involved in an ambitious project to transform one of its existing buildings into a passive collections store. This project followed the principle of ‘preservation through re-use’ and the idea that the ‘most sustainable building is the building you already have.’ Although the new space includes an air handling system, the decision was made not to install active environmental controls and opted instead for a passive storage environment. Racking, furniture, packing materials and general equipment were sourced second hand or surplus via several platforms. This kept costs low whilst also giving equipment a second life.
For more on this project, see our Case Studies pages.
We said a fond farewell to Research Officer, Sal Mager, who dedicated much of her time developing and delivering Carbon Literacy sessions with Archives West Midlands and working on education and engagement in her local area of Shropshire.
Case Studies
The group has continued to develop case studies that are intended to support ARA members on their sustainability journey. Please access these from the ARA website https://www.archives.org.uk/environment-case-studies
Contact details
To find out more about the work we have been undertaking and to contact the group, please email ARAenvironment@archives.org.uk