INTERVIEW
A greener library: The Bodleian’s push for sustainability
Sarah Lockwood, Bodleian Libraries’ Head of Support Services, tells CILIP reporter Rob Mackinlay how environmental concerns are driving forward a sustainability journey with ambitious targets, and gives some tips for other library and heritage organisations looking at ways to make their own changes.
HOW do we start behaving as if our planet is in the middle of a climate crisis/emergency/apocalypse? There are small starts and big ones. As well as looking at some of the easy wins on the sustainability agenda, this article also explores the cutting edge of library sustainability, with the focus on library buildings, their resources and users. Whilst being sympathetic to and protecting the content and collections of our libraries the advice comes from a diff erent profession. Sarah, who has been in facilities manage- ment for over 10 years, working as Facilities Manager at the Royal Albert Hall and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew before moving to Bodleian Libraries, said: “These roles that support a building and its operation can sometimes feel a bit thankless, but we have the privilege of knowing our eff orts help to preserve amazing collections for access and use, as well as protecting wonderful buildings. There is a genuine pride in knowing that your team is essential to the ongoing operation and preservation of the building and its contents.”
Top and bottom
Sarah describes the sustainability agenda as a ‘fundamental guiding principle’ that is key for any Facilities Manager. At the University of Oxford the aim is clear: “We launched a new ambitious carbon target in June last year, we are committed to reducing emissions by 50
50 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Rob Mackinlay (@cilip_reporter2,
rob.mackinlay@
cilip.org.uk) is Journalist, Information Professional.
per cent by 2030 (
https://bit.ly/2VoC25K), however, we haven’t stopped there, we are in consulta- tion to see if we can be even more ambitious in our aims.”
And having chaired sustainability commit- tees and worked with many organisations she believes the Bodleian Libraries and the University of Oxford have an eff ective approach: working both a top-down green strategy – which is not uncommon – but also a more formalised bottom-up move- ment through a Green Impact scheme (https://
sustainability.admin.ox.ac.uk/green-impact). This encourages non-facilities staff to create groups and spend time thinking about resource and behaviour effi ciency in their buildings. She says the tips that come out of these groups can spill into diff erent areas of life – both profes-
March 2020
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