People visit museums primarily to see the artwork, listen to a curator talk or go on a tour. They might choose to make art or take in a concert, but eventually, there’s something we all need to do: eat.

PEM’s Atrium Café offers a lively menu of sandwiches, salads and snacks. You might have enjoyed their dragon-themed cookie on Lunar New Year or refreshed with a glass of bubbly at an after-hours event. All of that is thanks to PEM’s partnership with Gourmet Caterers, a family-run catering operation founded in Roslindale in 1973. Known for catering several Boston-area cultural institutions, Gourmet previously helped keep baseball fans fed at Fenway Park for nearly 20 years during the long wait for the Red Sox to reverse the curse.

Gourmet aims to source the majority of its meat and produce from within 100 miles of its facilities, reducing its carbon footprint from shipping while supporting the local agricultural community. The café also carries products from Commonwealth Kitchen, a Dorchester-based organization that champions small food businesses owned by people of color, women and immigrants. Finally, they’re a Styrofoam-free facility that has switched to biodegradable plates, cups, cutlery and straws.

Besides reducing the resources needed to produce food, Gourmet is also working to reduce food waste. The caterer partners with Rescuing Leftover Cuisine (RLC), an organization with nine branches across the U.S. that diverts unsold food from restaurants and cafés to community organizations. Individual volunteers and businesses work seven days a week to package up leftover food and deliver it to nonprofits, such as shelters and city-run food banks. RLC matches donors and recipients based on their food offerings and needs and maintains strict safety standards. Since 2023, the Atrium Café has provided more than 1,300 pounds of excess food to Salem-area organizations.

PEM’s sustainability initiatives are a work in progress. Other past or ongoing projects include switching to compostable packaging in the shop, creatively reusing paint and construction materials for exhibitions and harvesting milkweed seeds to ship to the Monarch Watch butterfly conservation group. The museum recently embarked on its first composting initiative, and is hoping to share updates with visitors later this year.

One mainstay has been encouraging visitors to take climate action in their own communities. Hydroponic gardening is a great example of what’s possible at home. You don’t need a shipping container and the resources of a whole catering company — just a plastic storage container and a pump. (Grow kits are also an option.) Or, make a commitment to reduce food waste in your home. Whatever you do, remember that small steps still count.

Check out PEM’s next Climate + Environment exhibition, opening later this month. Knowing Nature: Stories of the Boreal Forest introduces visitors to the vast forests that stretch across the Northern Hemisphere, and uses photography and interactive experiences to explain how this vital habitat protects the health of our planet. Knowing Nature is presented in English and Spanish and opens on July 26.