Preparing your museum for extreme heat events

Increasing incidents of extreme heat are a growing operational issue for UK museums and galleries. Our climate continues to change due to human activities which produce greenhouse gas emissions and trap heat in our atmosphere. This trapped heat causes global temperatures to rise which also leads to shifts in weather patterns and their intensity.

Buildings, policies and operational processes need to be adapted to cope with these changing conditions. Museums and galleries face additional challenges to managing your museum and caring for staff and visitors in heatwaves.

Health and Safety obligations

While the UK does not have a maximum workplace temperature, employers still have a statutory duty to ensure the health and safety of staff and volunteers. Employers must assess whether higher temperatures pose a risk to their staff and implement appropriate measures to mitigate those risks.

Extreme heat events also impact the safety and wellbeing of visitors to your venue. Particularly older people, young children and babies, and people with underlying health conditions which make them more vulnerable to extreme heat.

Increased risk of temporary closures

Several UK museums closed temporarily in response to repeated heatwaves in summer 2026. Climate change is already having a direct impact on Scotland’s museums. In the past 12 months, 38% of respondents to our recent sector survey reported that one or more of their museums had temporarily closed because of extreme weather, with 41 museums affected and an estimated 146 days of opening lost.

Museums and galleries will need to adapt to the changing climate to avoid closures like this becoming more regular.

Damage to collections

Large swings in temperature and humidity during extreme heat events can cause lasting damage to collection items. High temperatures speed up chemical decay, while rapid humidity changes can cause materials to crack

Before taking action it’s important to understand how heat affects your building. Every building behaves differently to heat, and there is no single way to reduce its effects. Gathering information can help you make better informed decisions.

You have data to start from if you already record temperature and humidity readings as part of your environmental monitoring procedures. These readings can help you find rooms that run hotter or heat up faster, as well as how long it takes them to cool down.

Staff and volunteers working front of house often know which rooms are likely to overheat, as they spend more time in public spaces. If you don’t monitor temperature and humidity in public spaces, start now. Temporarily moving environmental monitoring equipment to a public space for a week will give basic readings that can help confirm staff observations.

Your data will show which rooms overheat, how often, and how far outside safe ranges they go. Use this to prioritise spaces by risk, considering both the people who spend time in them and the collections they hold.

The data can help you act quicker on short-term or low cost measures, while planning for larger capital adaptions you may need.

Short-term measures are actions you can take quickly when a heatwave is forecast. While you can put these in place as conditions change, planning them in advance means you don’t need to make decisions under pressure.

Operating during a period of extreme heat requires managing the physical environment to keep your building as cool as possible, supporting the people who work, volunteer, and visit your venue, and making operational changes to how your spaces are used.

Manage the physical environment

Keep heat out

• Install external shading, such as awnings, canopies, shutters, or sail shades, to block solar heat effectively. Remember that material changes to the building, such as installing external shutters, may need planning permission.
• Make the most of shade from existing trees and planting, particularly on south and west facing sides of your building
• Prioritise internal shading on windows and skylights which receive the most direct sunlight
• Apply solar control or reflective film to windows and skylights to cut the heat coming through the glass while allowing in natural light
• Turn off lights, screens, and equipment not in use, as they all give off heat
• Switch gallery lighting to LED where you can, which gives off less heat, uses less energy, and protects collections from UV

Encourage cooler air through your buildings

• Balance additional ventilation against the preventive conservation needs of your collection. Allowing more outside air into the building can raise humidity and introduce dust, pollutants, and pests, and rapid humidity changes can damage collections. Prioritise ventilation in visitor and staff areas and be more cautious in spaces holding sensitive material.
• Always keep security in mind, and do not leave windows or doors open in ways that create unsecured access points to the building
• Consider additional ventilation at cooler times of day, such as early morning, when the outside air is cooler, to flush warm air out and cool the building
• Open windows and internal doors to create airflow once the air outside is cooler than the air inside. Close windows once external temperature is warmer than inside.
• Use fans to move air around, which helps people feel cooler

Use mechanical cooling where necessary

• Use air conditioning in a targeted way, focusing on areas where you need it most rather than a broad brush approach
• Balance the energy use and carbon cost of air conditioning against its benefits, and record where you genuinely needed mechanical cooling to inform long-term adaptation planning

Support people on site

Changes should be made in consultation with staff and volunteers, particularly those working in front of house positions who can provide information on public spaces.

Keep people cool and hydrated

• Make drinking water readily available and encourage people to drink regularly
• Allow more frequent breaks in a cooler space
• Relax dress codes and uniform requirements where you can, so people can stay comfortable
• Provide fans, portable air conditioning or other forms of cooling where rooms cannot be kept at a reasonable temperature

Adjust how and where people work

• Adjust duties and rotas to rotate people between warmer and cooler areas throughout the day so that time in hot spaces is spread across a wider group of people
• Move non-essential tasks that can wait to cooler parts of the day, or to cooler rooms
• Have a clear process for closing a room or area of the museum if it becomes too hot. Set out who makes the decision, who they contact, and what happens next. Front of house staff and volunteers often notice overheating first, so make sure the people on the floor know how to follow that process and can raise concerns quickly through the right channels.
• Reduce physically demanding work, such as object handling or moving stock, during the hottest hours, as exertion raises the risk of heat stress
• Be prepared to adjust or pause activities that cannot be done safely in the heat

Look out for others wellbeing

• Make sure staff and volunteers know the signs of heat stress and heat exhaustion, and what to do if they, a colleague or visitor  feel unwell
• Be ready to make reasonable adjustments for anyone who is more affected by heat, such as changing their duties, shifts, or working area, and let people tell you what they need rather than assuming
• Regularly check on anyone working alone in an outlying gallery or at a site with few other staff nearby
• Make sure everyone knows they can speak up if they are struggling.

Visitors to your venue

• Offer drinking water, or make it clear where the nearest water refill point is
• Provide seating so people can rest, particularly on longer routes through the building
• Set aside a cooler, shaded space where people can cool down, such as a lower-ground floor room, education space, or gallery that stays cool
• Signpost clearly to the coolest parts of the building, to water, and to seating, using welcoming signs that also explain if any rooms are closed. Ensure Front of House staff and volunteers share this information when signage isn’t available.
• Think about visitors in outdoor spaces. Provide shade or move queues if necessary

Cool off in Culture

You can also join the wider effort to make cultural spaces available as places to cool down. The Cool Off in Culture campaign, run by Julie’s Bicycle, maps museums, galleries, libraries, and other venues where people can find refuge during hot weather. the campaign offers free resources to help you promote your space and prepare for extreme heat.

Make operational changes

Some of the most effective short-term measures are changes to how you run your spaces, rather than to the building itself. These cost little, but require more flexibility, and can be adjusted as conditions change.

• Adjust opening hours to avoid the hottest part of the day, for example opening earlier in the morning while the building is cooler
• Reduce visitor numbers in the hottest rooms, or manage the flow of people so spaces do not become crowded and warm
• Move events, activities, or busy service points out of rooms that overheat and into cooler parts of the building
• Reschedule demanding indoor work, such as object handling or installation, to cooler times of day
• Close individual rooms that cannot be kept safe or comfortable. Create a clear process so staff know who can make the decision and what happens next
• Close the venue, or part of it, where conditions put people or collections at risk and other measures are not enough. Treat this as a considered decision, weighing the risk to people, the risk to collections, and the impact on visitors and staff.
• Plan for busy periods that coincide with hot weather, such as school holidays, when higher visitor numbers add heat and pressure to your spaces
• Keep a record of what you changed and how well it worked, to inform your planning and any longer term adaptations

For a ready made framework, the operational measures checklist, developed by Shade the UK for the Cool off in Culture campaign, sets out practical operational steps for preparing a cultural venue for extreme heat.

The measures in this section take more planning, time, and budget than the short-term steps above. Most museums and galleries are not planning new buildings. Museum collections are often housed in traditional or listed buildings, which can make a ‘fabric first’ approach to climate adaption more challenging. Keeping and adapting an existing building is itself a sustainable choice, as reusing a building retains the carbon already embodied in its structure and materials.

Environmental monitoring data can show areas to focus on. The spaces that overheat most, or that hold the most vulnerable collections or the people most at risk, are where long-term investment will make the biggest difference. Some of these measures affect the building itself, so they may need consent before you can carry them out.

Adapt the building, fabric first

The most effective long-term approach is to make changes to the building itself before adding technology. This is known as a ‘fabric first’ approach. This means keeping heat out through insulation, shading, and glazing improvements, and helping the building remove heat through better natural ventilation.

Traditional buildings are designed to breathe. Change insulation and ventilation at the same time. Making a building more airtight without proper ventilation can cause problems with poor air quality.

Historic Environment Scotland’s short guide to climate change adaptation for traditional buildings sets out how to adapt traditional building fabric, including passive ventilation, shutters and blinds, and thermal mass. For measures specific to arts and cultural venues, the heat adaptation guide for arts and cultural venues, produced by Shade the UK, offers a menu of building and outdoor measures from low-cost changes to major retrofits.

Plan for additional permission

Adaptations may need additional permission before you can implement them. External changes such as shading, solar panels, or new ventilation openings may need planning permission. Alterations that affect the character of a listed building also need listed building consent. Both of these are requested through your local authority planning departments. Scheduled monuments need scheduled monument consent from Historic Environment Scotland. All these processes take time to navigate and should be thought about when setting project timelines.

If your building is listed, setting out what makes it important in a short conservation statement helps you and the planning authority agree what can be changed. Speak to your local authority’s planning and conservation officers, and Historic Environment Scotland, early. Their guidance on the use and adaptation of listed buildings explains how changes to listed buildings are assessed and the approaches open to you.

You may need to consider reversible or internal changes, such as secondary glazing or internal shutters, rather than permanent external alterations.

Review your environmental targets to reduce cooling demands

Reviewing your environmental targets is a direct way to cut energy use, and it connects directly to the short-term monitoring work covered earlier in this guide. The data you collect on which spaces overheat, which are already stable, and which hold the most sensitive material gives you the evidence you need to make targeted, object-led decisions about where tight environmental control is necessary. It’s important that changes to target bands are made gradually, over long periods of time.

The Bizot Green Principles Handbook 1, sets out the practical steps for adopting wider parameters, including how to use predictive tools to assess risk for specific objects and collections. The key principle is gradual change. Avoid sudden or abrupt changes in temperature and/or relative humidity. Allow conditions to drift with the seasons while keeping day to day fluctuations small and monitor vulnerable objects as you go. A conservator’s assessment is essential before making any changes to conditions for sensitive, fragile, or composite items.

The National Galleries of Scotland is applying this approach, using broader target bands suited to the conditions their collection is already accustomed to, and allowing seasonal drift in harmony with external conditions. The V&A has published an account of the same process at a larger scale, using environmental monitoring data to model future climate risk and reduce reliance on energy-intensive conditioning.

Replace heat inefficient equipment at the end of its life

Replacing older equipment and technology it with a more energy efficient alternative reduces the heat load your building generates and cuts running costs at the same time. Moving to LED lighting, which gives off significantly less heat than halogen or tungsten, is an accessible first step.

The Pier Arts Centre in Orkney converted their gallery lighting from halogen to LED at end of life, retaining almost all of their existing tracks and fixtures to avoid costly building work, and cut electricity use by 15% in the first six months. Their LED conversion case study sets out how they approached the project, including the challenges and the expert advice that made it work.

Using planting and shade to cool outdoor spaces

Trees and shrubs provide shade and help keep outdoor spaces cooler for visitors and staff. Focus on the sunniest sides of the building, usually south and west-facing walls, as well as entrances and queuing areas. Climbing plants on trellises are a flexible, lower cost way to shade walls and windows.

Choose native plants suited to your local conditions. Trees that lose their leaves in winter are a better choice near buildings, as they provide shade in summer and let light through in the winter when it is more needed. Avoid dense, tall evergreen planting close to the building.

Keep plants trimmed back from the building. In rural locations, unmanaged vegetation close to a building can increase fire risk.

Update your emergency plan

Extreme heat should sit alongside other extreme weather events in your organisational emergency plan, such as storms and flooding. Your emergency plan should identify which climate-related risks apply to your building and location, set out how you will respond to each, and name who is responsible. For museums in rural or semi-rural locations, wildfire is an additional risk to include during heatwaves. Review and test your plan regularly, and make sure staff and volunteers know what to do before an incident happens.

The Culture for Climate Scotland guide to adapting to climate change and Adaptation Scotland both offer tools to help you assess climate risks for your organisation and building.

Additional funds are typically required for long-term building adaptation. Several funding routes are open to Scottish museums. The Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS) grants programme include grants which can fund climate adaption such as the Repair and Adaptation Fund, or Museum Development Fund.

Historic Environment Scotland offers grants for conservation-standard repair and adaptation work for listed buildings. Current opportunities are listed on the HES grants and funding pages. The National Lottery Heritage Fund also offers grants from £10,000 upwards and Creative Scotland and the Scottish Futures Trust have also launched a pilot fund specifically for cultural buildings adapting to climate change. Current opportunities are listed on the Creative Scotland website.

Additional smaller grants as also available through the Funding Scotland website.

Health and safety of people

Acas has produced guidance on managing extreme temperatures in the workplace, covering employer duties, risk assessments, and practical steps for supporting staff.

The Health and Safety Executive has produced guidance on protecting workers from heat stress, including how to assess and manage the risks.

The World Health Organization has published a fact sheet on climate change, heat, and health, covering health risks, vulnerable groups, and the public health response to extreme heat.

Buildings and the physical environment

Historic England has produced technical guidance on overheating in historic buildings, covering passive measures, ventilation, shading, and mechanical cooling in the context of listed and traditional buildings.

Shade the UK has produced two resources as part of the Cool Off in Culture campaign: a heat adaptation guide for arts and cultural venues covering building, operational, and outdoor measures, and an operational measures checklist to help teams assign responsibility and track progress on heat readiness.

Shade the UK and the British Red Cross have produced a guide to overheating adaptation for homes and cultural venues, with practical building and operational measures.

The Renewable Energy Hub has published an article explaining how solar chimneys work to cool buildings as a passive ventilation measure.

The Conversation has published an article on how trees and greenery cool cities, including which types of planting are most effective.

Planning and climate resilience

The Bizot Green Protocol sets out international guidelines for more sustainable collections care, including recommended environmental parameters for many collections.

The Cool Off in Culture campaign maps cultural venues offering cool spaces to the public. Signing up adds your venue to the map and provides free resources to help you prepare and promote your space.

Fire Scotland has produced guidance on wildfire prevention and emergency planning, covering how to reduce risk and what to do in the event of a wildfire.

The Scottish Wildfire Forum brings together organisations working on wildfire risk in Scotland, with resources and guidance for land managers and others.