Climate change and environmental crisis directly impacts our community and the lives of millions around the world. As part of our Climate + Environment initiative, PEM is hosting special exhibitions and programs about our changing relationship to the natural world to spark conversation, motivate action, and inspire creative solutions.

What we’ve done

• PEM was awarded the inaugural Mass Save Climate Leader® Award for energy efficiency in October 2022.
• PEM’s current efforts to reduce CO2 emissions will have the equivalent of recharging nearly 1 billion smartphones
• Partnering with the city and local organizations for the annual Preservation in Changing Climate: Salem Conference. Previously hosted the 2021 and 2022 conferences
• Initiated the Climate + Environment Ideators in 2021. This museum-wide staff group meets regularly to share information, discuss new opportunities and propose ideas to help make PEM a more sustainable and climate-forward institution.
• UMass Amherst native bee expert concluded PEM’s historic Ropes Mansion Garden has a wide and varied bee population, which illustrates a healthy example of how people and pollinators can co-exist and aid one another
• During annual “Cut Down Day” at Ropes Mansion, which prepares the garden for winter, PEM’s head gardener harvested milkweed seeds and sent packages to the Save Our Monarchs and the Monarch Watch foundations, which help endangered monarch butterflies

There’s still work to be done.

We hope you’ll join us as we learn together, exploring topics like sustainable practice, environmental justice, coastal vulnerability and more. Check back here for upcoming climate-focused events, guest speakers and exhibitions.

Follow along on social media using #PEMClimate