How the Canadian Museum of History Is Embedding Sustainability Into Its DNA

From geothermal river water to annual environmental reporting, Canada’s national museum of human history is treating sustainability as a mindset, not a project.

When the Canadian Museum of History was designed in the 1980s, its architects made a decision that was, in the words of its current Head of Mechanical and Electrical Technology, “ahead of its time by 20 years.” Rather than installing conventional cooling towers on the roof, they chose to use water drawn from the adjacent Ottawa River to cool the building’s mechanical systems. Decades later, that original commitment to environmental thinking is being matched by a new, organisation-wide push to embed sustainability into every corner of the museum’s operations.

A Building Designed Around Its Environment

The Museum of History sits on the shores of the Ottawa River in Gatineau, Quebec, and its relationship with that river is more than aesthetic. A geothermal system draws river water through a pumping station into the building’s chiller plant, where it is used multiple times to cool the condensers before being returned to the river. Two of the building’s four chillers are configured for heat recovery, meaning the same system that cools the building in summer also contributes to heating it in winter — capturing the heat generated as a byproduct of the refrigeration process rather than venting it as waste.

The War Museum, located across the river in Ottawa, operates on similar principles, though with a slightly different configuration. Here, a mixing valve blends returning condenser water with fresh river water before it passes through the chillers, and a separator removes silt from the incoming water. A monitoring system — a “bio box” — watches for signs of zebra mussel infestation, which could clog the intake pipes.

Both buildings also benefit from a more recent addition: a 1,000-tonne magnetic centrifugal chiller at the War Museum that uses magnetic levitation to eliminate the friction losses of traditional compressors. According to Todd Keeley, the museum’s Head of Mechanical and Electrical Technology, this machine uses approximately 75% of the electricity that a conventional chiller would require to do the same work.

Grey Water and Green Roofs

The sustainability thinking built into the original design extends beyond the mechanical plant. Architect Raymond Moriyama incorporated a grey water filtration system into the Museum of History that treats river water through carbon filtration, media filtration, and ultraviolet disinfection before using it to flush the building’s toilets and urinals, and to irrigate parts of the grounds in summer.

The War Museum’s green roof — the second largest in operation in Canada when the building opened in 2005 — was a deliberate design choice to help the building blend into its surroundings, evoking the bunker-like structures of wartime Normandy and Dieppe. During construction, the team also sourced worn copper roofing panels being replaced at the Canadian Parliament, repurposing them as wall cladding inside the museum — an early demonstration of the recycling principle that now runs through the institution’s broader sustainability strategy.

Measuring What Matters

The buildings’ environmental credentials provided a strong foundation, but in 2021 the picture changed significantly. The Canadian government passed the Net Zero Emissions Accountability Act, which set a target of net-zero emissions for all federal government operations by 2050 and required Crown corporations — including the national museums — to measure and report their greenhouse gas emissions annually.

For Senior Advisor Paul Kalyta, this was a turning point. “Having green buildings is a fantastic start, but we need to do much more if we want to align with achieving the government targets. We must embed sustainability into every aspect of our operations.”

The museum responded with a structured programme of work. The board of trustees adopted four institutional commitments: reducing greenhouse gas emissions; reducing waste through the principles of reduce, reuse, and recycle; protecting the environment and biodiversity within the museum’s operational scope; and developing organisational policies that embed environmental sustainability across all functions.

A corporate environmental sustainability policy followed, defining roles and responsibilities across the institution. Rather than establishing a centralised sustainability office, the museum took a deliberate decision to distribute responsibility — every team, from facilities to conservation to exhibitions to research, is expected to embed sustainability into its own work. “The best people to embed sustainability into those areas are the people who work in those operations,” Kalyta notes.

Coordination sits with a newly created working group, CARE (Climate Action Reporting and Engagement), which reports directly to the senior leadership team. CARE’s role is not to run individual initiatives but to ensure they are coordinated and that the museum remains accountable for its commitments.

Reporting Transparently

In October 2025, the museum released its first annual environmental report, prepared in line with international methodologies including the GHG Protocol. The report covers both qualitative and quantitative dimensions: the governance structures and environmental risk management on one side, and hard metrics on the other.

Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions — from gas, electricity, and museum vehicles — formed the starting point. The museum then extended its measurement to Scope 3 emissions, including business travel and employee commuting. A staff survey was used to gather data on commuting distances, frequency, and modes of transport, which also allowed the museum to calculate emissions avoided as a result of its hybrid working policy.

Beyond greenhouse gases, the report tracks a range of additional metrics: the waste diversion rate (the percentage of operational waste that is reused, recycled, or composted); the proportion of requests for proposals that include environmental criteria; the percentage of museum boutique sales sourced from local suppliers; and the number of programmes and partnerships that incorporate environmental themes.

Translating Policy Into Practice

Since launching the policy and publishing the first report, the museum has moved to translate its commitments into operational change. Recent actions include the acquisition of the museum’s first electric vehicle, the elimination of single-use plastic water bottles from its cafeteria and catering services, the introduction of a carbon calculator for organisations renting the museum’s spaces for events, new requirements for repurposing building materials in upcoming exhibitions, and a screening process for all new exhibition proposals to identify opportunities to integrate environmental themes into the content.

As President and CEO Caroline Dromaguet puts it, the goal is for sustainability to function as a mindset rather than a discrete project. “A museum is more than just a building with exhibitions. It can be a steward of both heritage and the environment.”

The work is ongoing. The museum’s next steps will involve developing more specific operational guidelines in the areas where measurement has revealed the largest environmental footprints — a practical expression of the principle that has guided much of this work from the beginning: what gets measured gets managed.

This article is based on a presentation at the Green Museums Summit by Caroline Dromaguet, President and CEO of the Canadian Museum of History and the Canadian War Museum; Todd Keeley, Head of Mechanical and Electrical Technology at the Canadian Museum of History; and Paul Kalyta, Senior Advisor at the Canadian Museum of History.