About the
GoGreen
project

The urgent challenges

current-challenges

The following key challenges are addressed in GoGreen:

  1. The lacks a unanimous green definition in the field.
  2. Many current preservation materials and methods are harmful and outdated.
  3. The current use of toxic and pollutant products is antithetical to the green guidelines.
  4. Conservation professionals are unaware of the impact of their actions on energy consumption and the environment.

These barriers prohibit the sector from making real advances and open the field up to the danger of greenwashing. Conservation must – and wishes to - transform to a sustainable profession in alignment with the Green Deal.

Group 86

Research

Innovative research methdologies and strategies lead to greener conservation practices.
Group 85

Defining
“Green”

A draft will be presented to the conservation community and environmental engineers for feedback and input.
Group 84

Refining
“Green”

Feedback will be incorporated and a final definition to be agreed upon will be presented.
Group 83

Advocacy and implementation

The “green” definition will be presented to all national and international organization and associations and individual conservators for adoption.

Objectives

objectives2

GoGreen’s core objective is to initiate green revolution by reinventing conservation practices towards environmentally friendly and human healthy solutions. GoGreen will spearhead this revolution by accomplishing the following objectives:

  1. Define parameters for what constitutes green conservation to influence the creation of sector-wide standards.
  2. Develop preventive conservation practices and a decision-making model that utilizes ‘green thinking’ in conservation.
  3. Develop and introduce green innovative materials and methods inspired by historical recipes and methods, biological processes and green chemistry practices.
  4. Create a prototype of a digital web-app that helps conservators evaluate the environmental impact of their actions and supports their search for greener alternatives.
  5. Empower practitioners by creating a sector-wide paradigm shift, making green thinking the daily standard in conservation.
Group 86

Research

GoGreen proposes a holistic approach from passive to remedial conservation, from conservation policy decisions to work-floor decisions between materials.
Group 85

Policy Proposals

Workshops, focus groups, surveys, and key stakeholder interviews will support the creation of a policy template for the field.
Group 84

Policy Integration

Advocacy work will focus on policy adaption from national and international organizations and associations.
Group 83

Going Green

Based on the definition of green and green policies from membership bodies, GoGreen will work with manufacturing companies and researchers to find greener conservation materials and treatments and inform the digital tool, which will support green conservation choices for individual practitioners.

GoGreen project: Goals

goals
  1. Develop new damage functions that allow more flexible environmental control in collections, thus improving energy efficiency.
  2. Generate innovative nature-inspired, bio-based and historical conservation treatment-inspired methods for remedial conservation, including new cleaning solutions for paintings and metals, all using green solvents, bio-inspired reagents, green delivery systems; and stabilization methods for metal and glass that employ innovative techniques like biopassivation to stabilize metal surfaces and nanomaterials that mimic the growth of silica to stabilize glass
  3. Assess our new materials and methods using cutting-edge analytical techniques and benchmark methods in collaboration with expert practitioners and museums, to determine their efficacy in the cleaning of paintings and metals, or the stabilisation of glass and metal objects.
  4. Develop a prototype of a digital web-app to aid conservators in the design of green preventive and remedial conservation treatments, and a decision model integrating green thinking in complex conservation decision making.

Crucially, GoGreen encompasses all relevant and necessary academic and socio-economic actors spanning the full stakeholder value chain to ensure future impact. Our uniquely advantageous composition coupled with the embedding of bottom-up education of professionals through modules and courses for conservation training programmes, emerging conservators and mid-career professionals, guarantees the next generation of conservators are fully prepared to embrace the GreenDeal.