Sustainability

One of Ibermuseos’ main objectives is to promote the sustainability of Ibero-American museums and museological processes. This issue has been at the heart of global policy debates since the 1970s and is currently one of the priority commitments of the United Nations (UN) for the coming years, within the framework of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

Responding to the need for specific policies for the museum sector across the region, Ibermuseos approaches sustainability from a multidimensional perspective — social, cultural, economic and environmental — and through a transdisciplinary lens that draws on different fields of knowledge. Our work is structured around three areas of action: research, implementation and advocacy, always with a focus on the sustainable development of the museum sector at the local level. The objective is to foster initiatives that enable the design and implementation of strategic actions supporting new models of management.

To advance this agenda, in 2019 we presented a Common Conceptual Framework on Sustainability and, in 2020, launched the “More Sustainable Museums” series. In addition, over the following years, we delivered a range of training activities, including the course “The Sustainable Museum: Concepts and Experiences” (2019, Uruguay), the Ibermuseos Capacity-Building Mini-Course “Museum Sustainability: Innovating Practices and Contributing to the Future” (2020), and the webinar “Museums and Sustainability: Rebuild and Reimagine” (2021).

Subsequently, with the aim of providing the more than 10,000 museum institutions across Ibero-America with a diagnostic tool to assess their level of sustainability, Ibermuseos concentrated its efforts from 2021 onwards on the collaborative development of a Sustainability Self-Assessment Guide, which was launched in 2023.

In line with this approach and with the recommendations emerging from the 10th Ibero-American Meeting of Museums (10th EIM), organised by Ibermuseos in September 2022, sustainability has been adopted as a cross-cutting perspective, highlighting the role of museums in connecting the agendas of culture and sustainable development.

As a result, and as a transversal area of work within Ibermuseos, we organised the Ibero-American Museums and Sustainability Conference in Brazil in 2023 under the theme “Tools, Practices and Strategies”, followed in 2025 by its second edition in Portugal, dedicated to “Education and Care for Collective Well-being”.

This important process continues to generate new opportunities and strengthen global connections. In 2025, we joined forces with cultural and arts organisations across Europe to accelerate the transition towards sustainability through the global alliance Culture for the Planet, of which Ibermuseos is a founding member.