Our Sustainability Strategy 2023-24

Our Sustainability Strategy 2023-24

At Dundee Heritage Trust, we are committed to protecting and sharing our local and global heritage for current and future generations.

To do this, we know it is vital to protect our planet.

In 2018, we were proud to receive our first Green Tourism award at Discovery Point, where we have now consistently achieved Silver for over half a decade.
In 2023, we want to go further than ever to put sustainability at the heart of what we do, and in the last six months, we have worked hard to create this – our first-ever Sustainability Strategy – to help guide us on the journey.
We have listened to people across our organisation to develop a real understanding of our where we are now, the challenges we are facing, and the solutions and actions we can take to do better now and in the future.
We have built in an essential knowledge of the needs of our planet and what science and policy are telling us we need to do now to prevent the worst impacts of climate change and the dismantling of the world’s ecosystems.
And we have done this this with an acute awareness of the risks and challenges to our heritage as a changing climate, growing energy and resource insecurity, and a crisis in the cost of living all continue to threaten our museums and communities.

We are proud to be sharing our progress on this journey for the first time in 2023 and hope that you will follow and support us in doing so. 

Our Priorities 2023-24

The science is clear: climate change is the most urgent risk to our planet this decade.

We will urgently and continuously strive to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in the coming months and years. By April 2024, we will set our first quantified emissions reduction target for our Scope 1 and 2 emissions.

We know people and the planet both benefit from the responsible use of natural resources.

We will endeavour to embed this knowledge through new approaches to procurement, use, and waste at our museums in 2023, including for exhibitions, conferences, and events.

We will ensure our decision-making is rooted in evidence.

We will measure, monitor, and record our impact across all areas of a detailed action plan across seven themes of Energy, Water, Waste, Food & Drink, Transport, Nature, and People, and will use this to set quantified SMART targets as we develop our plans for 2024-25.

We will be transparent about our progress and accountable for our promises.

A Sustainability Working Group will lead on the execution of our strategy, which will be publicly available online, and we will regularly report on progress to internal and external stakeholders, including in the Annual Report of the Trustees.

We will always put people at the heart of our efforts.

As we embark on the next stage of our journey to become a sustainable charity for the twenty-first century, we will listen to all our stakeholders, engage our people in the challenges and their solutions, and empower everyone to act to protect our planet and its heritage for current and future generations. 

We are grateful to all of the staff, supporters, and wonderful educators who have helped to inform and shape this strategy and our action plan for 2023-24.

For more information or if you’d just like to chat about what we are doing, please feel free to get in touch at sustainability@dundeeheritage.co.uk.

Or, to learn more about how you can help the planet as a visitor to our museums, check out our Responsible Visitor Charter for Discovery Point and Verdant Works.