1. Sustainability at the
California Academy of
Sciences: Integrated
operations, programs,
exhibits and outreach
Aaron Pope
Manager of Sustainability Programs,
California Academy of Sciences
4
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2. 4342 Greener Museums Sustainability at the California Academy of Sciences
The California Academy of Sciences was formed in
San Francisco in 1853, with a mission to promote science
through exhibition, education and research. The building
and most of the exhibits and collections at the original
downtown location were destroyed by the 1906 San Francisco
earthquake, whereupon the Academy re-established itself
in Golden Gate Park in 1916. During the ensuing decades
the Academy expanded its facilities, exhibits and programs,
becoming a world-class natural history museum, aquarium
and planetarium. Over time the buildings and infrastructure
deteriorated, and the effects of the 1989 Loma Prieta
earthquake precipitated a review of the institution’s
infrastructure, completed in 1992. The review concluded that
the Academy facility was no longer safe and needed to be
rebuilt.
Over the next decade the vision of the new Academy
took shape. Numerous community groups, members, staff
scientists, futurists, planners, and museum and aquarium
professionals were asked by the Academy’s senior leadership,
“What should the Academy of the 21st century look like?”
The Academy’s mission is to “explore, explain and
protect the natural world,” and one of the clear directives
that emerged from this discovery process was that the new
facility, and the organization itself, must position itself as a
sustainability leader to continue fulfilling its mission. The new
Academy needed to not only minimize its own environmental
impact, but also make a statement about the importance and
viability of building and operating sustainably.
The selection of Renzo Piano as the new building’s
principal architect in 1999 helped to cement this direction.
Renzo’s vision was of a building intimately connected to the
surrounding environment and its natural weather systems. He
pictured lifting up a slice of Golden Gate Park and tucking the
new Academy building underneath. He envisioned expansive
walls of glass and clear sightlines throughout the building
to blur the boundaries between the interior and the outside
park. Integrating this vision with the exhibitry needs of the
Academy resulted in a design for the world’s largest, LEED
platinum certified public building.
The Academy closed its doors to the public in Golden
Gate Park at the end of 2003 and opened its temporary
transition facility in the spring of 2004. Groundbreaking for
the new facility occurred in September 2005. After two years
of construction and one year of exhibit completion and fit-out,
the new Academy opened to the public in September 2008.
In its first two years of operation, the new Academy welcomed
nearly 4 million visitors.

3. 4544 Greener Museums Sustainability at the California Academy of Sciences
Facility Overview
The principal aquarium exhibitions feature a Philippine
coral reef, rainforests of the world, the Northern California
coast, and a southern swamp. Other exhibitions showcase
the Academy’s long-standing and ongoing research in
the Galapagos Islands and Madagascar, and a series of
renovated dioramas present the diverse habitats of Africa.
There is also a major exhibition area that focuses on global
climate change. A combination of interpretive methods are
used throughout the facility, with an emphasis on person-to-
person interactions, live animal presentations and interactive
technologies.
Topped by a one-hectare (2.5 acres) living roof, the
building employs a wide range of energy saving materials
and technologies. The roof is bordered by a glass canopy
containing 60,000 photovoltaic cells, which produce up to
8% of the Academy’s annual power needs and prevent the
release of over 55.5 tons of greenhouse gas emissions
each year. Radiant floor heating reduces heating energy
needs, while heat recovery systems capture and utilize heat
produced by HVAC equipment. The undulating roofline draws
cool air into the building and naturally ventilates the adjacent
exhibit spaces through automatically controlled skylights, and
at least 90% of the regularly occupied spaces have access to
natural daylight and outside views. These features combine
to help lower the Academy’s energy use significantly.
Advanced features help the Academy conserve water
as well. The building reduces potable water use through
low-flow fixtures, waterless urinals, use of Golden Gate park
groundwater to water its living roof and landscaping, improved
aquarium life support systems, and by piping in saltwater
for the aquarium directly from the Pacific Ocean, just a few
miles away. The improved life support systems ensure that
aquarium water can be recycled many times before disposal.
The living roof reduces storm water run-off by more than
14,000 cubic meters (3.6 million gallons) per year, as well
and provides habitat for a range of local animal and plant
species.
Recycled materials also play a big part in the building’s
story. Over 90% of the demolition waste from the old Academy
was recycled in local construction projects. In the new
building, recycled steel was used for 100% of the building’s
structural steel. At least 50% of the wood was sustainably
harvested and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
The insulation in the walls is made from recycled blue jean
scraps, a renewable, cotton resource that is non-toxic. The
building’s concrete is composed of 50% industrial by-product.
Construction project managers Don Young and
Associates (San Francisco) estimated that the incremental
construction costs associated with the green design were
about 5%-10% of the total construction costs. An exact figure
is impossible to determine since the building was designed
from the ground up to be sustainable, and there are no
comparable, conventional museum/aquarium/planetarium
facilities to use as a baseline.
The Academy building is receiving a high level
of attention from the media and visitors because of its
cutting-edge, green design. According to visitor surveys,
the architecture itself is the second most popular draw
for visitors, ahead of the planetarium and natural history
museum. Investing in such a high-profile design has proven
to be a sound decision from the standpoint of the Academy’s
attendance goals, but a less tangible benefit has been
to showcase what is possible in the field of green building

4. 4746 Greener Museums Sustainability at the California Academy of Sciences
design.
By providing transparency and communicating
design weaknesses as well as strengths, the Academy strives
to offer practical guidance and inspire future efforts. As a
state-of-the-art, and in many ways experimental, facility, the
building incorporates many innovative features that have not
been implemented before. Most of the building’s systems
are performing as intended, but there have been some
unintended results, and the Academy is making every attempt
to pass these lessons along to other, interested parties.
An example of this type of lesson, one that any future
green museum design teams would be wise to consider, is
the reality that passively cooled spaces lack the necessary
temperature and humidity controls to properly display
museum collection specimens. As a result, a significant
portion of the Academy exhibit resources over the past two
years have been spent retrofitting a large, HVAC controlled
exhibition space, as well as building many smaller, individual
climate controlled specimen cases.
Sustainability Goals
Sustainability can be defined in many ways, and the Academy
felt the need to publically define its understanding of the
concept. Soon after opening, a “sustainability statement”
was crafted and approved by the Academy’s senior leadership
team and Board of Trustees. This statement was published
on the Academy website in 2008, where it has been available
ever since.
Academy Sustainability Statement
Sustainability is often defined as meeting current human
needswithoutendangeringourdescendants.Thereisabroad,
scientific consensus that our current environmental demands
are unsustainable, causing climate change, degradation of
natural habitats, loss of species, and shortages of essential
resources.
The California Academy of Sciences’ mission to
explore, explain and protect the natural world compels
the Academy to engage in scientific research relevant to
sustainability, to raise public awareness about these urgent
problems, and to minimize its own environmental impact.
The Academy’s green building signifies its commitment to
sustainability. The culture and internal practices mirror that
commitmentintheareasofenergy,water,wastemanagement,
transportation, purchasing and food. Academy programs
highlight the living world and its connection to the changing
global environment. Academy research focuses on the origins
and maintenance of life’s diversity, and its expeditions roam
the world, gathering scientific data to answer the questions,
“How has life evolved, and how can it be sustained?”
The Academy’s specific sustainability goals have evolved into
prioritizing sustainable operations, developing programs and
exhibits to help the general public understand sustainability
and to empower them to make changes in their own lives,
acting as an advisor for other organizations to help reduce
their environmental impact, and disseminating the Academy’s
sustainability efforts internally and externally.
Sustainable Operations
Although not every sustainable building project will benefit
from a complex certification process such as the US Green
Building Council’s LEED program, going through LEED’s New
Construction certification process played a crucial role for the

5. Academy by providing it with an existing framework during the
design phase. It supplied a check list and a series of concrete
performance targets to work towards, negating the need for
the Academy to come up with standards on its own. In a similar
vein, the Academy is currently pursuing another type of LEED
certification, Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance
(O&M), to fine-tune its sustainable operating practices, as well
as demonstrate its continuing environmental commitment
to the world. LEED O&M certification standards cover a
wide array of operational areas, such as water use, energy
use, landscape management, pest control, purchasing, and
waste management. All certified facilities must apply for
recertification at least every five years, encouraging ongoing
stewardship.
While the one-and-a-half year LEED O&M certification
process will not be completed until 2011, the Academy has
already made many commitments in the past few years to
reduce its environmental impact.
Some examples are:
• Choosing not to sell or provide plastic, bottled water
• Partnering with restaurant partners who prioritize local,
organic and seasonal ingredients
• Requiring on-premise caterers to adhere to strict
sustainability guidelines
• Sourcing aquarium animals and food supplies from
sustainable sources
• Minimizing the amount and impact of printed materials
sent out for marketing purposes
• Incentivizing staff and visitors to use public transportation
• Continually expanding energy use reduction strategies
• Continually expanding potable water use reduction
• Reducing, reusing and recycling exhibit materials
Sustainable operations are not only part of the
Academy’scoremission-theyalsodelivermanyotherbenefits,
including: the long-term financial benefits of adopting efficient
technologies; an increased credibility for the institution’s
sustainability messaging; the setting of a positive example for
others to follow; and increased visitorship and public support.
Internal Culture
An empowered, supportive Academy staff is essential for
operating sustainably. Fostering a “culture of sustainability”
inside the institution has been an ongoing process,
involving staff training on sustainability basics, staff-
wide communication emails, utilization of San Francisco
municipality staff expertise, green-themed staff events, and
an active Greenteam with an open-membership policy. A
quarterly, half-day sustainability orientation session is now
mandatory for all new Academy staff members, and more
experienced staff members are also encouraged to attend.
The Academy recognizes that successfully nurturing
staff excitement and participation on sustainable issues will
require constant efforts to shape and improve the internal
culture of the Academy. All departments are involved to some
extent in green efforts, and so future initiatives must continue
to reach out to all staff members.
Public Programs and Exhibits
Like many museums, the Academy’s reputation as a trusted
source of information provides a much great opportunity
to protect the natural world, through public programs and
4948 Greener Museums Sustainability at the California Academy of Sciences

6. 5150 Greener Museums Sustainability at the California Academy of Sciences
exhibits.
Sustainability education is integrated into many
exhibits and visitor amenities throughout the Academy. In
the aquarium, signage highlights the serious threats that
the oceans face, and showcases inspiring local conservation
efforts underway across the globe, from San Francisco
to Indonesia. At the Building Green exhibit, visitors can
learn about the sustainable design of the building and how
similar strategies can make their own homes more efficient.
Restroom messages remind visitors to conserve water and
offer inspirational quotes. The living roof railing graphics
explain the benefits of living roofs for buildings. And in the
climate change exhibit, interactive tools and activities
empower visitors to become part of the solution.
This environmental focus is also woven into the
Academy’s public floor staff presentations, audio tours,
behind-the-scenes tours, handouts, intern and docent
programs and neighborhood outreach. The various initiatives
contribute to a multi-layered approach, intended to help the
Academy reach the widest possible audience and have the
largest impact.
Another of the Academy’s goals is to help foster a
sense of connection between visitors and the environment.
In today’s society, there is a growing chasm between many
people’s modernized, urban lives and the natural world. The
Academy’s exhibits and programs attempt to bridge that gap
by providing inspiring experiences for visitors who would not
otherwise get the chance to develop an emotional attachment
to the wild places of the Earth. With no emotional attachment,
people are unlikely to prioritize protecting the natural systems
which actually support humans and all other forms of life.
Teacher Institute on Science and Sustainability
One of the most successful, and potentially impactful,
sustainability programs at the Academy is the Educational
Department’s Teacher Institute on Science & Sustainability.
Numerous indicators point to a lack of effective scientific and
environmental education in America’s schools. The institute
was created to help fill that void, by recruiting and training
teachers to develop and deliver strong formal education
curricula on these important topics.
Each cohort of 3rd – 5th grade teachers, selected
from a large pool of applicants, is enrolled in a 2-year program.
The program offers in-depth workshops, offsite visits, and
a 2-week summer session. Topics covered include climate
change, energy use, green building design and food choices.
Sustainability Consulting
Since opening, the Academy has been gratified to receive
thousands of requests for guidance on sustainability
issues. There is a constant, and seemingly inexhaustible,
demand from other institutions, schools, government
agencies and private corporations for information on how
the Academy approaches sustainability. These come in the
form of requests for specialty tours, speakers for events and
conferences, interviews, exhibit and program content details,
and operational best practices, as well as offers to join
steering committees. A significant portion of the Sustainability
Department’s bandwidth is currently devoted to handling
as many of these requests as possible, and the Academy is
considering how to increase its capacity in this regard.
Conclusion
The California Academy of Sciences views sustainability as

7. 5352 Greener Museums Sustainability at the California Academy of Sciences
a journey, more than a destination. There is no such thing
as a perfectly sustainable museum. All institutions have
an environmental impact, and are forced to balance their
resource usage with their core mission and visitor needs.
At the Academy that means questioning what is possible,
trying out innovative ideas, and being committed to constant
improvement. The Academy has succeeded in establishing
itself as an industry leader in sustainability, but its ongoing
commitment implies that it has only begun to realize its
potential, positive impact on the world.
Aaron Pope
Manager of Sustainability Programs,
California Academy of Sciences