Atlanta History Center: Annäherung an 100 Jahre der Reflexion

Atlanta, Georgia is home to the Atlanta History Center, a 33-acre blend of history, nature, and architecture. This museum is recognized by the Georgia Audubon Society (a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting Georgia’s birds and their habitats) for its dedication to sharing the stories of the past to show how they are shaping our present and future. They specialize in showcasing Atlanta’s history through a sustainable lens, making the connection between Atlanta’s history and our natural world.

The Atlanta History Center uses innovative sustainability practices such as an integrated compost program, energy-efficient building systems, and water conservation methods. Through these practices, they demonstrate an understanding of stewardship while empowering their visitors to embrace a more sustainable lifestyle. As this museum gets ready to celebrate their one hundredth anniversary in 2026, their sustainable progress provides a model for other museums to follow in their footsteps.

The Climate Toolkit had a chance to interview Jackson McQuigg, Vice President of Properties at Atlanta History Center, to discuss their sustainable practices and how they connect their museum to community and the environment.

KLIMA-TOOLKIT: The museum upgraded its HVAC system in 2022. How has the energy efficiency change impacted the museum’s overall sustainability goals?

JACKSON MCQUIGG:

An energy audit done by Atlanta-based Southface Institute got us interested in upgrading the main chiller plant in our largest building, the Atlanta History Museum, back in 2013. This report suggested that the five independent chillers which were installed to serve separate phases of the Museum (which had been expanded multiple times), be looped together into a single, unified chiller plant. This change, which involved re-piping the plant, enabled us to have more redundancies in case of issues with a single chiller and to have the ability to run less chillers to cool the building.

Naturally, air conditioning is critical to a facility like ours, especially given our location in the South. Cooling is not just done for comfort — it is essential for dehumidification, thereby preventing the development of mold, which could be quite detrimental to our artifacts.

Looping the chillers together was completed in 2013, and while significant savings were achieved, a subsequent 2020 energy audit, also done by Southface, revealed that a better HVAC controls strategy for the Atlanta History Museum’s chiller plant could result in even more savings. Although the chillers had been configured into a single loop, each chiller largely relied on the water temperature monitored by its own onboard control panel to decide when to run or when shut down. Working with Siemens, in 2022 we came up with a different approach which used demand monitoring instead. Today, differential pressure (DP) sensors and electrical demand monitoring enable the chillers to run only when truly needed.

These changes have resulted in significant reductions in energy use. You can learn more about how it has worked out for us here.

KLIMA-TOOLKIT: Can you elaborate on the role of rainwater harvesting at the Atlanta History Center? How does your 5,000-gallon cistern contribute to sustainable irrigation and water conservation, and how can others follow in your footsteps? Is this innovative system a possibility for other museums like yours? 

JACKSON MCQUIGG:

This was a case of making lemonade out of lemons — as well as a great big practical experiment for us. First off, the Atlanta History Center is fortunate enough to have the 33-acre Goizueta Gardens as one of its core offerings. The gardens are magnificent but require the use of a lot of water. Since 1980, the Atlanta History Center has relied upon an onsite well for water, but we were still using a fair amount of potable water provided by our local water utility to water the gardens.

When we were constructing a new home for the Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama painting at the Atlanta History Center during the sitework phase in 2015 – 2016, we discovered groundwater at a depth of 42 feet. We pumped out water for months until finally realizing that this water was naturally occurring and would not go away (our part of Georgia is known for its underground springs), so we elected to pump the groundwater into an underground cistern and thereby make it available for irrigating the Goizueta Gardens. Likewise, we piped some of our roof drains from the building into the very same cistern. We found a place on the Cyclorama jobsite which could accommodate a 5,000-gallon cistern and installed it. And while this water has been beneficial to our gardens, we quickly realized that the cistern was capable of satisfying only a small amount of our irrigation needs (a typical irrigation zone uses 16 gallons of water per minute). We’ve since supplemented our irrigation strategy by drilling another irrigation well on the property.

Between the two wells and the cistern, the Gardens are no longer reliant on potable water from our local utility. All the water utilized by our gardens is from onsite sources.

KLIMA-TOOLKIT: Tell us about the strategies the museum is using to share forgotten or marginalized voices in your historical storytelling, specifically in relation to environmental and sustainable issues. How are you encouraging visitors to reflect on how historical events have shaped the natural environment?

JACKSON MCQUIGG:

The Atlanta History Center spends a lot of time being thoughtful about its historical storytelling. Whether it is through our exhibits like Hats of the King Family Women oder  More Than Brave: The Life of Henry Aaron, our programs like author lectures, our collections, or our Goizueta Gardens, we hope to appeal to a broad range of guests who will find these stories compelling. We are highly cognizant that an engaged, genuinely interested audience will learn more from us, which sets the bar high.

Our Guiding Principles help to guide the conversations we have with ourselves and our guests. We intend to be a space for conversations for everyone and certainly don’t want to be talking to our visitors across an ideological void. As to telling our guests how historical events have shaped the natural environment, I would point to two remarkable physical examples we have on our 33-acre site: our 1860s farm, the Smith Farm, and the 19^th century cotton terraces we have on our Swan Woods Trail. It doesn’t get any more real than those examples.

KLIMA-TOOLKIT: How do you see history, environmental responsibility, and active citizen engagement as forces that are shaping the future of sustainability?

JACKSON MCQUIGG:

There is a myriad of examples of why citizen engagement is important and how it relates to democracy and voting. Just feet away from where I am writing this, in our James G. Kenan Research Center, are the archives of brave Atlantans who fought for the right to vote. Those stories are poignant reminders of how change can happen when citizens work together for the greater good.

As to the link between history and the future of sustainability, just look at the past. The social and economic issues related to cotton production in Georgia and other Southern states are well known. A lesser-told story is how the cotton crop and related farming practices in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries depleted the soil of our state and others. Cotton caused erosion problems and exhausted the soil in parts of our state for decades (Georgia even turned one of them into a tourist attraction).

KLIMA-TOOLKIT: Are there activities currently taking place in Georgia which are of particular environmental concern?

JACKSON MCQUIGG:

Here in the Atlanta area, there are heated conversations about chemical plants, air quality from Metro Atlanta’s growth, and “forever chemicals” from carpet production impacting the water supplies of cities and towns to our north. And who will speak up about these issues? Hopefully, educated, engaged citizens who vote—perhaps inspired by the historical figures we talk about every day.

KLIMA-TOOLKIT: Looking ahead to your 100th anniversary in 2026, how does sustainability factor into your long-term plans?

JACKSON MCQUIGG:

That’s an easy one! Climate change is real and is impacting our planet. However, there are also plenty of economic reasons to be sustainable. Sustainability is the right business decision for us, allowing us to free up funds to focus on our mission that would otherwise be spent on utility bills. Museums are a business — and I think that all can agree that our donors don’t gift their hard-earned dollars to the Atlanta History Center to pay the light bill or the water bill. Quite frankly, we’d rather spend those bucks educating kids about history. Our visitors and donors expect us to practice sustainability, but the decision to be sustainable is one which often makes dollars and sense for us.  And notice I said practice sustainability. We always have room to improve on that front.

The Atlanta History Center stands as a reminder of how the past, present and future work together to create more community engagement and result in better sustainable practices. Through the museums’ storytelling and lessons from Atlanta’s rich background, they preserve their history while inspiring visitors to reflect on their role within our environment. This museum’s commitment to sustainability is a vital part of its mission and promise to future generations. The Atlanta History Center is embarking on its climate action journey and helping to create a path for a more sustainable and inclusive future.