July 11, 2023

We held an online workshop on climate neutrality with climate officer Elie Peuvrel and the nGbK team. During the session, we evaluated the calculated emissions from our research trips to refine our climate-neutral strategy based on initial insights.

We learned that our two curatorial research trips generated approximately 1 ton of CO₂—about 5 percent of the mobility emissions allowed for the project. However, we also learned from Elie, and indirectly from the Zero Academy, that our biggest challenge wouldn’t be staying within our emissions threshold for the project’s activities, but rather the emissions generated by public travel to our programs. While our upcoming artist-related travel was estimated to produce around 4 tons of CO₂, visitor traffic to nGbK was projected to account for approximately 16 tons of CO₂. This alone would nearly exhaust the emissions allowance for the entire project.

To address this issue, we agreed to initiate discussions with the Zero Funds program regarding these visitor-related emissions. We found this issue controversial, as visitor traffic seemed beyond our direct control and counterproductive to our goal of maximizing public engagement with the outcomes of our work. It was also difficult to measure accurately, given nGbK’s location on Alexanderplatz—a major transportation hub where people often pass by during their daily routines.

The conversations with the Zero Funds did not lead to a complete shift in this regard, as addressing visitor traffic and raising public awareness around climate impacts are central objectives of the KSB Zero project. To better estimate visitor numbers and their associated emissions, nGbK prepared a mobility questionnaire for the exhibition. Based on this a coefficient was calculated, which was multiplied by the counted visitor numbers.

Emissions from visitor traffic in SALT. CLAY. ROCK.: 19,6 T CO₂e, 59,4% of all emissions in the project