Current sustainability practices within the recordkeeping sector

In this guest blog from Alasdair Bachell, Research Officer for the ARA Environmental Sustainability Group, Alasdair gives us an overview of the findings from the group’s recent survey to investigate current sustainability practices within the sector.

In November 2022 the ARA Environmental Sustainability Group carried out a survey of its members to investigate current sustainability practices within the sector and to see where best to focus the resources and efforts of the group. A total of 54 responses were received and every ARA region was represented. Most of the respondents were archivists, along with a small number of conservators, records managers, and other consultant/management positions.

There were several key findings from the survey:

• Members are doing a lot of non-sector-specific climate action, encouraged by the goals of their wider organisation. This includes small scale action such as recycling and power saving measures. A small number of respondents mentioned green travel policies in their organisation.

• Members are concerned with the impact of analogue and digital record keeping. These were identified as priorities for work going forward and identifies a gap in our knowledge about the climate impact of our professions.

• Members were generally very comfortable with advocating for sustainable work practices. This is a marked change from previous research which indicated people were less comfortable broaching the topic: Come hell or high water: climate action by archives, records and cultural heritage professionals in the United Kingdom | Emerald Insight

• Record keeping practices were only considered within organisational policy for 37% of respondents with relevant policies in place. Around a third of respondents had responsibility for these policies.

• Members were most interested in three forms of environmental impact affecting them: Power Usage, Air/Environmental Conditioning, and Insulation. Only a small number of respondents were interested in finding out about investment and transportation. These priorities likely reflect the degree to which respondents felt they could meaningfully change/challenge established practice. Practical elements with direct impacts on collections (i.e. power consumption and temperature control) were higher priority items than impacts that are more likely to be outside the control of record keepers (such as investment) or where options for changing practice were limited (transportation).

•  Archive collections were not being widely used to educate on climate change issues. This likely reflects the relatively low proportion of collections which were relevant to the topic, and this was not a high priority for members.

The highest priorities for the group were researching the impact of record keeping on the climate, identifying how best to incorporate environmental sustainability into strategic planning and the creation of advocacy tools for ARA members. Online training and talks on best practice were the most requested form of training for members.

A key takeaway from the survey is that there is a distinct need for more awareness of the topic and what we can do as a sector to mitigate our impact. Tried and tested methods for mitigating impacts such as recycling, composting, and turning the lights off appear to be ingrained and widespread which is encouraging, however more research is needed into sector-specific impacts.

We would like to thank everyone who participated in this survey and for providing us with such valuable feedback.