Environmental sustainability at the core of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao’s Strategic Plan with the commitment to work towards climate neutrality by 2030

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao installs solar panels on its rooftops

Today, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao has presented the installation of 300 solar panels on its rooftops, which will allow for savings of around 5% of the Museum’s total electricity consumption and will cover all the exhibition galleries’ lighting needs.

The solar panels were installed on the two largest rooftops such that they are invisible from the street and are integrated into the architecture. Preserving the building’s architectural uniqueness was a major challenge in the implementation this project, and all details—from the design of the installation to the harmonization with other features, such as the skylights—were approved by architect Frank Gehry and the City of Bilbao.

This thus completes the solar panel project of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, which started in January this year with the installation of 90 photovoltaic panels on the Museum’s external storage facility which are currently supplying an average of 30% of this building’s total electrical demand, although on sunny days the panels cover all the warehouse’s electrical needs.

The photovoltaic installation on the Bilbao building’s rooftops is one of the actions contained in the 2024–25 environmental sustainability plan, which includes the commitment to work towards carbon neutrality by 2030. This project is financed with European funds —NextGenerationEU— managed by the Basque Energy Agency.

Other initiatives included in the 2024–25 Action Plan

Measuring its Carbon Footprint

Globally, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao has been the first museum to measure its carbon footprint —including indirect emissions— and to make the measurement public. This is one of the main initiatives that the Museum has implemented since 2019 and has gradually increased its scope. The complete carbon footprint of all exhibitions, including logistics and museography, has been calculated since 2022.

In 2023, the Museum’s footprint was 2,561.84 tons of CO2, 12% less than the average annual measurements in the period 2019–22 due to the different actions taken. The ultimate goal is to calculate the direct and indirect emissions of all Museum operations by the end of this two-year period (2024–25), including events, public programs, the restaurant, and the Store.

Purchasing electricity from 100% renewable energy sources

Since June 1, 2024, 100% of the electricity supplied to the Museum is from sustainable energy sources, which will allow it to lower its carbon footprint by more than one-third .

More flexibility in the temperature and humidity control parameters

The Museum lowered its gas consumption by 35% and electricity by 6% since it began to implement in 2022 temperature and relative humidity control parameters that are better adapted to outside weather conditions. Since then, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao has been an international benchmark in this change in preventive artwork conservation standards, which has a huge impact on large museums’ CO2 emissions.

In the last quarter of 2024, the Museum will work to make the relative humidity parameters in the exhibition galleries even more flexible following the recommendations of ICOM – International Council of Museums; the IIC – International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Work; and the International Group of Organizers of Major Exhibitions, also known as the Bizot Group.

Sustainable Museography and Logistics

The Museum continues to research and test more environmentally-friendly materials for the installation of its exhibition. This year, biodegradable paint and 100% recyclable wood fiber boards were used for the first time with positive results in the small exhibition Learning Through Art. During this two-year period, the Museum will continue to test different materials in order to reuse and/or recycle all the elements used in exhibition designs.

Furthermore, the Museum is going to step up its use of rented crating materials instead of newly built ones, as well as its implementation of virtual supervision in the shipping and installation of works that travel between institutions, a technology applied in 2020 that reduces staff travel.

Exhibitions and Education

In late 2025, the Museum will open Arts of the Earth, an exhibition that aims to increase awareness of ecosystems and the role of art as a regenerative agent, especially at the level of soil, its resources, and biotopes. The show offers a reinterpretation of environmentally-geared international art from the past few decades: it brings together historical works from 1970 until the present day in mediums like sculpture, installation, photography, moving images, and performance. In the vast majority of cases, the works selected will incorporate locally manufactured elements, and local and land transportation will be encouraged. In addition to collaborations with pioneering artists and design studios in the field of sustainability, the show will also seek synergies with local organizations committed to the region’s ecological regeneration.

In addition to Arts of the Earth, the Art Program, educational initiatives, and public activities for the upcoming months will also include elements directly associated with environmental sustainability. Workshops, lectures, creative sessions, experts panels, and specific courses will approach different aspects of the climate issue.

The 2024–25 Action Plan reinforces the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao’s steadfast commitment to environmental preservation. In this sense, the Museum makes every effort to implement technologies and methods inspired by an ecological transition that contributes to lowering the consumption of energy and raw materials, developing recycling and circularity projects, and promoting activities that help raise the awareness of its visitors and the community.