PEM Reaffirms Climate Leadership with Expanded Initiative and Green Energy Agreement
Released July 21, 2025
SALEM, MA – The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) has recommitted to a three-year renewable energy agreement which will purchase renewable energy credits to match 100% of the annual electricity consumption for PEM’s 23-building campus in Salem. This agreement reinforces the principles and commitments set forth by PEM’s Climate + Environment Initiative.
In recent years, PEM has prioritized energy conservation to reduce its carbon footprint. In 2022, PEM was awarded the inaugural Mass Save Climate Leader® Award for energy efficiency. The museum’s first three-year agreement was set to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 7,000 metric tons. Through the dedication of PEM’s staff and contractors, the museum has been able to install efficient LED lighting and optimize its HVAC systems and controls, as well as find sustainable ways to reduce and repurpose exhibition design materials. In addition, PEM partners with the City of Salem and local organizations for the annual Preservation in a Changing Climate Conference. This year’s event will take place at PEM on September 17.
“As the nation’s oldest continually operating museum and an organization that is dedicated to the intersection of art, culture and science, we are proud to renew our commitment to the care of our planet,” said Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, PEM’s Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Executive Director and CEO. “Now more than ever, we feel a deep responsibility to stand among the nation’s cultural leaders taking meaningful action on climate.”
Later this week, PEM will open an exhibition that shines a light on a key biome for the climate: the boreal forest, which stretches across nearly the entire Northern Hemisphere, just below the Arctic Circle, and is home to 3.7 million people, 85 species of animals, 32,000 species of insects and 2 billion migratory birds. Knowing Nature: Stories of the Boreal Forest is on view at PEM from July 26, 2025 through September 27, 2026, and is bilingual, offered in English and Spanish. In recent years, PEM has presented a series of climate-focused exhibitions, including Narwhal: Revealing an Arctic Legend, Our Time on Earth, Climate Action: Inspiring Change and Down to the Bone: Edward Koren and Stephen Gorman.
“This exhibition provides a learning journey that starts with curiosity, builds empathy and leads to action,” said Jane Winchell, the Sarah Fraser Robbins Director of PEM’s Dotty Brown Art & Nature Center. “We are all connected to the boreal forest and our health and well-being are tied to its future. The vastness, beauty and solitude of this landscape touches something deep within us. It provides a place of hope in a changing world.”
SOCIAL MEDIA
Follow along on social media using #PEMClimate #PEMKnowingNature
PUBLICITY IMAGES
Publicity images available upon request.
IMAGE CREDITS
- Evening aerial exterior view of Peabody Essex Museum campus from Charter Street by photographer Timothy Hursley about 2003. Image Courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum. Photo Credit © Photo by Timothy Hursley.
- Scenic moonrise. Photo © Gary and Joanie McGuffin/themcguffins.ca
ABOUT THE SPONSORS OF MASS SAVE®
Mass Save® is a collaborative of Massachusetts’ electric and natural gas utilities and energy efficiency service providers including Berkshire Gas, Cape Light Compact, Eversource, Liberty, National Grid and Unitil. We empower residents, businesses and communities to make energy efficient upgrades by offering a wide range of services, rebates, incentives, trainings and information.
ABOUT THE CLIMATE CONFERENCE
The fifth annual conference will take place from 8:15 am–4:45 pm on Wednesday, September 17, in PEM’s Morse Auditorium. Join local climate leaders for a day of thought-provoking lectures, panel discussions and case studies aimed at advancing mitigation and adaptation strategies that address impacts of climate change on historic buildings, landscapes and neighborhoods. The day begins with a keynote from Christina Rae Butler, Provost and Professor of Historic Preservation and Architectural History at the American College of the Building Arts and author of Lowcountry at High Tide: A History of Flooding, Drainage, and Reclamation in Charleston, South Carolina. National Park Service Superintendent Jennifer Hardin will close the day with remarks at the National Park Service Armory Visitor Center. The fifth annual conference is hosted by Salem’s Preservation in a Changing Climate Partners, a working group of historic preservation organizations that is hosted by the City of Salem’s Planning and Community Development Department and includes the Peabody Essex Museum, the House of the Seven Gables, Salem Sound Coastwatch, Essex National Heritage, Historic New England and others. Early bird tickets are available until August 15.
ABOUT THE PEABODY ESSEX MUSEUM
Founded in 1799, the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts, is the country’s oldest continuously operating museum. PEM provides thought-provoking experiences of the arts, humanities and sciences to celebrate the creative achievements and potential of people across time, place and culture. By connecting people through inquiry, empathy and dialogue, PEM encourages an understanding of our shared humanity and fosters a sense of belonging in a complex, ever-changing world. We build, steward and share our superlative collection, which includes African, American, Asian Export, Chinese, contemporary, Japanese, Korean, maritime, Native American, Oceanic and South Asian art, as well as architecture, fashion and textiles, photography, natural history and one of the nation’s most important museum-based collections of rare books and manuscripts. PEM offers a varied and unique visitor experience, with hands-on creativity zones, interactive opportunities and performance spaces. The museum’s campus, which offers numerous gardens and green spaces, is an accredited arboretum and features more than a dozen noted historic structures, including Yin Yu Tang, a 200-year-old Chinese home that is the only example of Chinese domestic architecture in the United States.
MEDIA CONTACT
Whitney Van Dyke | Director of Marketing & Communications
whitney_vandyke@pem.org | 978-542-1828