Susan Hazan
CEO , Digital Heritage Israel
Killian Downing
Archivist , Dublin City University Library
Shadi Ardalan
Head of Member State Relations and Governance , Europeana Foundation
The Climate Action Community is one of the Europeana Initiative's specialist communities. Explore their work plan for 2023.
The Europeana Climate Community seeks to drive impactful, cooperative and sustainable action to address the climate emergency and the environmental impact of our life and work, while building on the Europeana Climate Action Manifesto. The Community aims for wider systemic and lasting change within our organisations and across networks. We believe it’s crucial to act now to find new ways to work without compromising our environment. We believe with the right support, guidance, engagement and collaboration we can turn our climate action aspirations into reality. As agents of change, we want to promote and enable change in Europeana and beyond.
Read and download the full Climate Action Community work plan below. If you are not already a member, you can also join the Climate Action Community through the Europeana Network Association.
The Climate Action Community's purpose is to advocate for and embed working practices that minimise the digital cultural heritage sector’s impact on the climate and environment. This operational plan for 2022-2023 sets out our work over the coming year to support sustainable practices in our community, across the Europeana Initiative and to inspire the sector at large.
This work plan has evolved through a co-curated, iterative process and a series of exploratory discussions, prioritisation, critique/feedback in the Steering Group, former leads of the Climate Action Group and the Climate Action Community over four months. Three main areas of focus determine the Community’s activities for the period between November 2022 - December 2023:
Planning our activities will enable us to balance our programme with our volunteer work force across the Steering Group and the Community. The ultimate aim is to ensure we advocate for climate action and embed sustainable practices in all we do together with the Europeana Network Association, the Europeana Foundation, the Foundation’s Green Team, and the Aggregators’ Forum.
The Climate Community Steering Group is composed of a chair, a co-chair, a community manager and other members with a range of expertise
Susan Hazan, CEO Digital Heritage Israel (Chair)
Killian Downing, Archivist Dublin City University (Co-chair)
Corinne Szteinsznaider and Marco Fiore, Coordinator Michael Culture/MUSEU-HUB
Evangelia Paschalidou, Researcher/ Museums for Future, PhD candidate
Flavia Bruni, ICCU, Italy, ENA Members Council
Helen Vincent, Head of Rare Books, Maps and Music Collections National Library of Scotland
Jostina Dhimitri, Professor University of Tirana
Matias Katajavaara Seidler, Partner & European Projects Lead, Khora Virtual Reality
Nelson Brito, Researcher University of Coimbra
Randi Cecchine, Student/ Documentary Filmmaker University of Amsterdam
Shadi Ardalan, Member States Officer, Europeana Foundation (Community Manager)
The Europeana Climate Community seeks to drive impactful, cooperative and sustainable action to address the climate emergency and the environmental impact of our life and work, while building on the Europeana Climate Action Manifesto. The Community aims for wider systemic and lasting change within our organisations and across networks. We believe it’s crucial to act now to find new ways to work without compromising our environment. We believe with the right support, guidance, engagement and collaboration we can turn our climate action aspirations into reality. As agents of change, we want to promote and enable change in Europeana and beyond.
We are driven by our:
Vision - The climate crisis implores us to work together as a global community to protect our planet. We will work collectively towards a climate conscious cultural heritage sector.
Mission - Advocating for and embedding working practices that minimise the digital cultural heritage sector’s impact on the climate and environment; support adaptation and resilience; and, help to make the right choices.
Strategy - Planning, collaborating, operating, advocating for digital sobriety and sufficiency.
The Community leads the effort to implement three sets of activities listed below. All Community members are invited to actively participate in the activities. We will call on other Europeana communities, the Europeana Network Association, the Europeana Foundation and the Europeana Aggregators’ Forum to contribute their views and collaborate with us to deliver these goals.
1) Digital Information Management Survey - design, implementation and analysis
Led by the Environmental sustainability practice Task Force, we will launch a survey on data management and preservation practices in recognition that there is currently no clear overview of how cultural heritage institutions and individuals plan for both a green and digital transformation. We will solicit expert advice if and when needed. This survey is a formative action that supports Europeana’s Climate Action Manifesto. It will advocate embedding optimal working practices that minimise the digital cultural heritage sector’s impact on the climate and environment. The survey could be followed by identifying and establishing a common vocabulary; clustering of mapping tools and performance indicators, a compilation and comparison of climate action institutional manifestos to develop an informative overview of the sector.
2) The Community contributes climate awareness and action to the data space; to the communities through cross-community collaboration and toward editorial and curatorial content
The Community will:
Support and promote climate action in the data space to ensure our work is relevant to the Sustainable Development Goals, the world we live in and the world we want to build.
Inform Europeana editorial and curatorial efforts through Europeana website galleries and blogs to communicate climate adaptation and resilience that highlights both historical and local knowledge to support our actions.
Showcase how our historical collections inform best practices in managing our natural resources.
Invite the Europeana Network Association members to share their climate action through storytelling, and highlight their academic research and their projects.
Collaborate with other Communities on shared aims, create and maintain synergies across the Network and consolidate green choices and informed action across the Europeana Initiative. In the first year, our focus will be on Communicators and EuropeanaTech Communities.
Research and conceptualise a new chapter on climate action in the Europeana Impact Playbook.
3) Reach out to the wider Europeana Network Association, raise awareness across the sector and disseminate knowledge and good practice
Developing and implementing a 12-month online series, workshops, Europeana Cafes, webinars (including one on UNESCO Futures Literacy) and informal community drop-ins. Themes and topics include: collections and climate action, digital efficiency & sufficiency, carbon offsetting, sustainable digital cultural heritage management, eco-responsible digital information management, impact and collaboration.
The scheduled online events include:
Oct-Dec 2022 | Q1 2023 | Q2 2023 | Q3 2022 |
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Communication and dissemination over Basecamp (for the Climate Action Community), Europeana-climate Listserv, news posts and blogs.
Exploring the idea of a network of green teams from cultural heritage organisations to collaborate, combine efforts and share best practice.
Stimulating greater community engagement and participation
The community budget of EUR 2 600 for 2023 will be allocated to the research, online workshops and events, production and design of materials to support the planned activities.
The successful planning in detail, implementation and delivery of these activities are contingent on the voluntary time and effort of the Chair, the Steering Group and the Community Members, supported by the Europeana Foundation. In addition to the expertise with the Community, we might work with external experts in some of these areas where expertise and skill sets will take the objectives the farthest.
We have identified a few risks that might delay or hamper the accomplishment of the activities. We will analyse the likelihood and the impact of the risks and will take measures to mitigate, minimise and eliminate them.
Communication risk
Effective and timely communication within the Steering Group, towards the Community, the Management Board, Europeana Foundation, other key actors
Efficient communication channels
Cost risk - Due to shortage or lack of budget
Shift to other options
Operational risk - Owing to inadequacy or failed qualitative, quantitative or strategies
Careful analysis and detailed planning
Manage this through raising awareness among ourselves and the community of this issue and taking account of it in setting and evaluating actions.
Skills resource risk
Leverage on the Steering Group and Community members, the Europeana Foundation’s Green Team and staff
Call for experts in the Europeana Network Association
Hire external experts within the available budget
Obsolescence risk
Schedule revisions of content to verify if they are still valid and relevant
External risks and changing conditions
Because our human resources are mostly voluntary and generally finite, we recognise the limiting factors that can impact timeliness, quality, delivery and overall activity success. We will proceed with caution and courage. We will work within our given limitations to accomplish these activities.
We are on a learning curve. We aim to progress steadily through sharing, collaboration, relying on the expertise and experience of our Steering Group, Community and the Europeana Initiative.
