Project facts

Duration: 2022-10-01 - 2026-10-01
Project coordinator: Dr. Katrien Keune, University of Amsterdam
Project consortium: Universiteit van Amsterdam (NL), Università di Bologna (IT), Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IT), Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne (FR), English Heritage (UK), The Courtauld Institute of Art (UK), Rijksmuseum (NL), école normale superieure paris-saclay (FR), Centre nationale de la recherche scientifique (FR), Norsk institutt for kulturminneforskning (NO), SAATI (IT), Instytut Katalizy i Fizykochemii Powierzchni im. Jerzego Habera Polskiej Akademii Nauk (PL), HES-SO: HE-Arc Conservation-restauration (CH)
Funding bodies: HORIZON.2.2 - Culture, creativity and inclusive society HORIZON-CL2-2021-HERITAGE-01-01 - Green technologies and materials for cultural heritage
Subject areas: Climate Change, Conservation, Research collaboration, Sustainability, Sustainable development, Sustainable Development Goals
Contact: info-gogreen@uva.nl
Budget: 3,272,605.00 Euro
Website: https://gogreenconservation.eu/

Presentation

The GoGreen project arises from the current need to see tangible changes for a sustainable future within the field of cultural heritage conservation. This project places conservation at the heart of making change to a sustainable sector, and mobilises conservators to take responsibility for the long-term impacts of their practice. GoGreen is a consortium of 13 partners from 7 countries who are leaders in their work and now leaders in change-making, thus guiding the sustainable transition and encouraging others to follow suit.

Along with demonstrable leadership and creative material innovations, this 4-year project aims to provide conservators with a set of policies and solutions to practice with lower energy consumption, less toxic materials, and fewer plastics.

To bring these experts together and provide the conservation field with greener  conservation materials, methodoloiges and standards, the European Commission provided GoGreen with a Horizon Europe grant under the heading of Green Technologies and Materials for Cultural Heritage: Horizon-CL2-Heritage-01-01.

Impacts & Results

GoGreen places conservation at the heart of the change to a sustainable sector, and mobilises conservators to take responsibility for the long-term impacts of their practice. GoGreen advocates for greener solutions and leadership to guide a sustainable transition within the industry. GoGreen aims to provide conservators with solutions to practice with lower energy consumption, less toxic materials, and fewer plastics.

GoGreen is bringing awareness to conservation professionals who may be unaware of their impact by first tackling the task of defining what 'green' is defined as within conservation. This will not only reduce greenwashing, but will begin to break barriers to enact tangible changes within the field. To do so, GoGreen is defining parameters, revising sector-wide standards, and developing decision-making models to utilize 'green thinking' in conservation.

GoGreen is developing and introducing 'green' innovative materials and methods inspired by historical recipes and methods, biological processes and rooted in green chemistry practices. Materials will be bio-based, nature-inspired, and applicable for remedial conservation including cleaning solutions for paintings and metals, green solvents, bio-inspired reagents, and green delivery systems.

GoGreen will also be creating a prototype of a digital web-app that will help conservators evaluate the environmental impact of their treatments and materials.