Sustainable Facilities and Galleries

Mia has established a number of sustainability initiatives throughout the museum, including:

LED gallery lights: In 2011 and 2012, Mia replaced 2,908 halogen lamps in its third-floor galleries with LED lamps, which use about two-thirds less electricity. The new LED lamps are also better for the art as they don’t produce potentially damaging ultraviolet or infrared radiation. In 2013, the museum completed a similar swap in its second and first floor galleries and expects to save an estimated 15 percent in electricity consumption throughout the museum.

Dark Mondays: On Mondays, when the museum is closed, the lights are generally turned off in the galleries, resulting in significantly less electricity consumption.

Motion-sensing lighting in public and staff spaces: Mia has installed motion-sensing lighting in storage spaces, library stacks, and restrooms to minimize light use when rooms are unoccupied.

LED facilities lights: Wherever possible, Mia has replaced older building and safety lighting with newer LED lamps or fixtures, saving money, reducing the load on the museum’s emergency electrical system, and shrinking the museum’s carbon footprint.

Reusable shipping crates: Mia repurposes the custom-made interior padding in art shipping crates for art storage.

Reusing display and crating materials: Whenever possible, Mia reuses and recycles the building materials used to make gallery displays and shipping crates.

Blower motors: Mia has been replacing its 32 air-handling blower motors and 200-plus pumps with high-efficiency motors—Energy Star-certified whenever possible.

Ionized water for cleaning: Mia’s janitorial staff has switched to ionized-water cleaning systems for many cleaning tasks, greatly reducing the number and quantity of hazardous chemicals used to keep the museum clean