The background
The Ministry of Education, Culture & Science (OCW) has given the National Archives (NA) the task of contributing to the government’s sustainability objectives. Copper8 has been asked to support the NA in drawing up a sustainability plan that is ambitious and supported, with the ultimate goal of reducing the NA’s environmental footprint.
Context
The NA’s task is to preserve important archives of the Government of the Netherlands in their original state and to make them available to society – forever. As the largest archive institution in the Netherlands, the NA has a leading role in keeping information accessible sustainably (in this context: in the long term). However, the question now arises as to how they can do this sustainably (in this context: in an environmentally conscious way).
The question
In order to realize a sustainable archive (in both senses of the word), Copper8 has been asked to support the NA in setting up and implementing a sustainability plan, through which the NA contributes to the government-wide sustainable objectives. This is only possible by creating awareness about sustainability among the management team (MT) and employees.
Current situation and future
Two tracks are important for creating a sustainability plan that can be supported:
- Providing insight into the NA’s current impact by means of a baseline measurement. This provides the basis for making choices: in which major impact areas they can achieve the greatest gains. It’s also possible to calculate which measures are the most promising.
- Creating awareness among NA employees and MT. This is necessary to increase support for a sustainable National Archives and to increase the urgency to take action.
The process
Throughout the process, there was intensive collaboration with a core team in which all departments were represented. We started the process by determining ambitions: In what areas are the NA’s priorities? Where can they make the most impact? What does the NA have the most influence on? At the same time, we started collecting data for the quantitative baseline measurement, so choices could be continuously substantiated with numerical input during the process. Together with the core team, we drew up a longlist of sustainable measures that can reduce the NA’s environmental footprint. These sustainable measures resulted in a series of experiments (action-oriented combinations of measures), which we picked up and implemented together with the NA. The whole process followed the ‘demonstrate, imitate, do it yourself’ approach, from advice to implementation
The results
The process has ensured that sustainability is firmly on the map at the NA. It has led to a sustainability plan that is supported by the entire organization, from the core team to the MT. A number of experiments have now been completed or started, in order to really make sustainable choices within the organization. We also delivered an impact model, with which the NA can keep track of the effects of these experiments.
