With the acceleration of human-driven climate change, libraries are playing an increased role in helping their communities navigate environmental calamities. The downtown public library in Asheville, North Carolina, for instance, was a beacon of connectivity after flooding from Hurricane Helene disrupted the area’s Wi-Fi service in September 2024. And during January’s Southern California wildfires, residents found resources at Los Angeles–area libraries, where they could access the internet, charging stations, water, and bathrooms.
But providing access to technology, shelter, and information after extreme weather is only one way libraries are grappling with sustainability. Many are also guiding communities with information to address urgent and emerging ecological threats, such as air and water pollution, food insecurity, and diminishing natural resources, as well as economic, political, and social disruptions.
Libraries are also working to preserve collections in the face of disaster, protect community culture, and reduce the environmental impact of their buildings and operations. Many libraries are approaching these challenges in diverse ways, allowing for multiple points of entry.
“Little things add up,” says René Tanner, a science librarian and head of research services at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. “Some things will take time and a cultural shift, but you can start wherever you are and at whatever level makes sense for your library.”
In 2019, the American Library Association (ALA) adopted sustainability as one of the Core Values of Librarianship to help guide members seeking to develop more sustainable institutions. ALA’s Sustainability Round Table (Sustain-RT), the ALA and Sustainability LibGuide, and a 2022 sustainability briefing are among the ongoing actions to provide scaffolding for these efforts.
American Libraries reached out to five library workers leading sustainability initiatives and research within the profession. They discuss how staff members can implement sustainability efforts, what frameworks help drive this work, and what pitfalls may occur.
As climate change brings new threats to libraries and the communities they serve, what adaptations are necessary to help mitigate disaster?
Garcia-Febo: Libraries must strengthen their infrastructure to withstand extreme weather events, implement disaster recovery plans, digitize collections for preservation, and collaborate with local agencies for community resilience. Additionally, incorporating climate-conscious building designs and sustainable practices will help mitigate future risks. Partnerships with local government agencies can help with recovery plans.
Tanner: A recent national survey, slated to be published in UCLA Library’s Electronic Green Journal in February, found roughly half of libraries have a disaster management plan. So there is an urgent need for libraries across the board to prepare. Geography plays a big role; plans need to be developed with the most likely weather events for your area in mind. ALA has a resource guide dedicated to library preparedness and disaster response. If there is a plan in place at your library, discuss it with your colleagues to make everyone aware. These plans need to be reviewed and discussed annually. If your library does not have a disaster management plan, this is a good time to develop one.
How can libraries and library workers also prepare our communities?
Witzig: For individuals, libraries can prioritize teaching and providing resources to learn life skills, creative arts, and sustainable practices, because natural disasters are often a consequence of the human impact on the planet. And an unfortunate reality is that disaster preparedness is one of those skills that is essential for everyone to have.
Libraries can continue to link individuals with community organizations that offer support in various areas and to different communities. They can share information so communities can collectively advocate for government policies and services that benefit everyone and the Earth.
Additionally, libraries can emphasize a relationship with the land we inhabit; this can be done by creating community gardens to model care of the land, providing—and purchasing—locally sourced food and goods, and being in good relations with communities that have knowledge of and relationship with the land since time immemorial.
How has your institution engaged in sustainable practices?
Bollerman: Hauppauge (N.Y.) Public Library completed the certification program of the Sustainable Libraries Initiative (SLI). We undertook a deep dive into the way we make decisions and try to center them on being more sustainable—environmentally sound, socially equitable, and economically feasible. SLI has been working for nearly 10 years on providing library leaders with a proven path forward to co-create libraries and communities that will thrive in the coming years.
Tanner: We have many programs and library practices that foreground sustainability. One popular initiative is our bike lending program. Through the program, students can rent a bike for the semester for $50 or 10 hours of volunteer work. We are also collaborating with the Freshwater Alliance at Rollins [a program at the college] to expand awareness of the value and importance of fresh water beyond the utility of it. When it comes to promoting sharing, we eliminated a disincentive to borrowing resources and no longer charge fines for late returns. We also have a touchless water-filling station in the library, which encourages people to use reusable water bottles.
When it comes to large capital improvements, the college has worked to get approval from the city to build 30 housing units close to campus to increase affordable housing for faculty and staff. This will also help reduce commute times for new faculty and staff and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by making it easier to walk or bike to work. There are also plans to install solar panels.
What are some everyday ways that libraries can be eco-friendly?
Bollerman: Rethink, refuse, reduce, reuse, repair, regift, and recycle. Libraries are already leaders in their communities in reducing consumption—we share. In addition, we are also excellent at reusing items—for crafts, especially. Expanding our thinking to ask basic questions like “Do we need this?” begins to open up conversations both personally and at work about how we consume. We try to lead by example. We have eliminated our single-use catering items, including table coverings, to nearly zero. We host events to promote reusing and repairing goods.
Filar Williams: What we need to do is both adapt and mitigate. Libraries themselves can work on reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. The National Climate Action Strategy recommends a goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 43% from 2015 levels by 2030 and to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Ways to mitigate include conducting an energy audit and benchmarking your greenhouse gas emissions to find ways to cut back or shift energy use, including shifting to renewables. Look at your transportation costs, create passive designs in your building, do a water audit. Benchmarking these processes will articulate and communicate how sustainable the library is. And it will allow the library to understand its challenges and find opportunities to build upon. Reviewing policies and practices with a sustainability lens will help create more sustainable operational practices as well.
How can libraries approach sustainability in an intersectional and justice-minded way?
Witzig: Libraries can and should diversify the perspectives in the information field. From a single vantage point, it is possible to see a fraction of the truth. If institutions proactively invite and engage diverse lenses, they can see with a depth and breadth that was impossible before. There are beneficial initiatives that already exist to try and elevate marginalized voices, but creating a truly sustainable ecosystem requires a level of introspection that, in our current unsustainable system, has either been lost, ignored, or outright challenged.
Individuals have a responsibility to their communities to interrogate their own biases and understand what privileges they have been afforded. This inner work is a prerequisite to the creation of a community of practice where others can be invited into the conversation of sustainability. Institutions have a responsibility to make space for these conversations and materially support actions that result from them. Organizations have the responsibility to constantly assess the balance between the benefit to people, to profit, and to the planet. When the profession (and the communities we represent) can hold these conversations in high esteem, subsequent actions move us toward a more balanced future.
Environmental racism has for many years harmed communities composed of those who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) and people from developing nations. How can libraries acknowledge and undo harm through their sustainability efforts?
Garcia-Febo: Libraries can connect environmental racism to sustainability by offering resources, programs, and discussions that raise awareness of its impacts. They can provide access to research, host forums with experts, and collaborate with local organizations to address environmental justice issues. Libraries can highlight stories, policies, and initiatives that promote equitable access to clean resources, advocate for sustainable development, and ensure marginalized voices are part of sustainability efforts.
One example of a library addressing environmental racism is Detroit Public Library, which has collaborated with local environmental justice organizations like the nonprofit Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice to raise awareness about the impact of environmental racism on local BIPOC residents. The library has hosted programs, forums, and workshops that focus on industrial pollution and environmental hazards that disproportionately affect marginalized communities. It has also offered information on how residents can advocate for cleaner, more sustainable environments, and promoted local green initiatives, such as urban gardening and clean energy programs.
Tanner: Libraries can elevate collections that celebrate BIPOC communities and simultaneously raise awareness of the inequities experienced by these groups and individuals. Archives and special collections play a role in this work by preserving artifacts and memorabilia by and about marginalized individuals and movements. We can examine our collections to see if BIPOC communities are represented across the collection, not just in designated collections.
Libraries can also work to include stories and authors who have not received the attention they deserve. While every library is different, you can look at just about anything—from policies to signage—and make changes that are more inclusive. Providing information, programming, and collections of interest to marginalized groups also advances efforts to create welcoming and healing spaces.
What partnerships, internal or external, should libraries form to achieve sustainability goals?
Bollerman: It takes all of us—top down, bottom up, side to side. It really doesn’t matter where it begins, but eventually having the whole institution on the same page will lead to real and lasting change. A library linking into already-existing municipal or county plans makes a lot of sense. Showing how the library is part of the resiliency of a community may lead to new respect for it, or even dollars to help bolster those efforts.
Filar Williams: Partnerships and collaborations are key in general for all we do in libraries. Nothing can be done in a silo. Libraries should seek partners on their campus or in their communities. Diversity in ideas brings better sustainable solutions. A library can be the gathering space, a multidisciplinary entity that can pull together groups or organizations that specialize in various areas to see the holistic picture of community needs.
Not only that, but partnering brings together more people and more resources, sharing the workload, the energy, and the impact. Building these relationships also strengthens your communication channels when disasters hit the community. Libraries with solid partnerships create the social infrastructure needed by individuals to develop social capital—fostering connections, resource sharing, mutual support, and collaboration among neighbors.
What are examples of successful collaborations and potential pitfalls?
Garcia-Febo: Green Stacks is a sustainability initiative by San Francisco Public Library that aims to incorporate green practices throughout the library system. It encompasses efforts to reduce energy consumption, waste, and the library system’s carbon footprint, while promoting sustainability within the community. Libraries can replicate this approach by building partnerships with local environmental groups and government agencies, aligning library goals with community initiatives.
Libraries should also encourage internal collaboration between departments such as programming, facilities, and information technology to integrate green practices across all operations. Potential challenges or pitfalls can include funding and resources and ongoing maintenance. Libraries may need to seek external grants or partnerships to overcome financial limitations and ensure long-term commitment and resources to sustain these initial efforts.
Per the EPA, the burning of fossil fuels is the largest single source of global greenhouse gas emissions. What sustainability practices should libraries consider when undergoing building renovations and new construction?
Bollerman: Burn less, and hopefully nothing at all. Explore net-zero energy, passive house, and the Living Building Challenge framework for ideas on reducing the need to burn carbon to operate our facilities.
Garcia-Febo: Incorporate energy-efficient designs, renewable energy sources, and environmentally friendly materials like bamboo, cork, and reclaimed wood. Install energy-efficient lighting and HVAC systems, using locally sourced and recycled materials, and pursue green building certifications like LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) or BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) to ensure the building meets high environmental standards.
Water conservation practices, such as low-flow fixtures and rainwater harvesting systems, should also be integrated, alongside passive design strategies that maximize natural light and ventilation. Additionally, sustainable landscaping with native plants can reduce water consumption and support local ecosystems. By adopting these sustainable practices, libraries not only reduce their environmental footprint but also create resilient, energy-efficient spaces that serve as models for community engagement in sustainability.
Artificial intelligence (AI) uses vast amounts of water and other resources. How can libraries and their staffers balance the need for new technology with sustainability strategies?
Bollerman: By educating our communities on all aspects of any issue. Once you adopt the triple bottom line way of thinking, you will ask yourself, “How does this choice, click, or purchase impact people, the planet, and my wallet?”
Filar Williams: Resource extraction is a large part of AI and supercomputing. But so are issues of power, oppression, and justice. How can we educate people to think critically about the surprising amount of water consumption of AI? Thirty students using ChatGPT for 10 minutes each, asking about 20 questions, consumes 80 gallons of water, or 50 minutes of faucet time. Across many classrooms, this cost cannot be ignored, particularly in the face of increasing droughts.
We know mineral mining has a devastating impact, yet we are moving toward more extraction as AI grows. The profitability of mining does not account for its full costs, including environmental damage, the illness and death of miners, and the loss to the communities it displaces. Most often these costs are truly hidden to those enjoying the benefits of AI, and what is hidden can stay hidden to those with power or who are otherwise motivated not to acknowledge or address these costs.
To produce the power to support AI, we use a constant drawdown of minerals, water, and fossil fuels, which indirectly create more violence and wars, climate refugees, pollution, extinction, and depletion, impacting the oceans, the air, the Earth, and the disadvantaged populations around the globe.
There may be no stopping AI, but we can establish guardrails and slow the process to make time for the creation of sustainable solutions. These are human-created tools, and subsequently the problems arising from them can be solved by humans. Moving too quickly in this area could be disastrous in many ways; we should move only at a pace that allows for the care of our planet and its inhabitants.
Garcia-Febo: Libraries can balance the need for new technologies like AI with sustainability by prioritizing energy-efficient and resource-conscious solutions. This includes using cloud services with green energy policies, optimizing AI tools for minimal resource use, and ensuring technology is integrated in ways that enhance long-term sustainability, such as supporting environmental education and promoting eco-friendly practices in library operations.
Additionally, libraries can focus on digital literacy programs that emphasize responsible technology use and resource conservation. This area continues to evolve, and we must stay updated and monitor developments to diligently prioritize sustainability.
Is there anything else that librarians and library leaders should know about sustainability?
Filar Williams: I’d like to share some takeaways from a keynote talk that [philosopher and environmental activist] Kathleen Dean Moore gave at the Washington Oregon Cascadia Higher Education Sustainability Conference in 2023: Scientists have come together for decades now to tell us how bad things are—and how things are getting worse—with facts. But we are missing from that message a moral imperative to do this work. It is wrong to wreck the planet. People will not act on fact alone; they need that moral imperative. They also need stories they can relate to.
Witzig: There is no position too high or too low to contribute to the conversation around sustainability. There is no institution that is exempt from the work of building a sustainable future. It is the collective responsibility of all those who inhabit this land to take care of it and all our plant, animal, and human relatives.
Tanner: Consider big and small ways to make a difference. Little things add up. Some things will take time and a cultural shift, but you can start wherever you are and at whatever level makes sense for your library.
Glossary
BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) A certification program that evaluates a building’s sustainable features, including materials, energy and water use, and waste reduction.
Climate change Long-term shifts in global temperatures and weather patterns that have been largely driven by human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, since the 1800s.
LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) A global certification program that sets a standard for buildings that prioritize sustainability, health, energy efficiency, and cost savings.
Living Building Challenge A framework that aims to advance sustainability measures in building projects through design, construction, and relationships between people and environments.
Net-zero energy A state in which the amount of greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activities and released into the atmosphere are balanced by their removal from the atmosphere.
Passive house A framework for reducing the environmental impact and improving energy efficiency in built structures that originated in Germany.
Resilience The ability of an entity—such as a person, organization, or environment—to adapt and develop in the face of adversity or change.
Sustainability Being able to meet people’s needs today while not compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs by taking into account ecological, social, and economic factors.
Triple bottom line A business concept that libraries apply to sustainability practices, taking into account financial viability, environmental impact, and social equity.
