Vizcaya Museum & Gardens

Environmental sustainability is one of Vizcaya Museum and Gardens’ core values. The preservation of Vizcaya’s cultural and environmental resources is part of the organization’s mission statement and Vizcaya envisions itself as a place that inspires people to embrace preservation and conservation. Vizcaya is dedicated to operating in an environmentally responsible manner and being a leader in sustainability through various initiatives aimed at reducing waste, conserving resources and promoting ecological awareness among employees, visitors and the community. Vizcaya has also invested significant resources in resiliency initiatives to protect the estate given the ongoing threats of tropical cyclones and climate change. The projects to renovate the gardens and the Village include sustainability and resiliency as key priorities that serve as examples to increase public awareness of their critical importance to us and the community.

Environmental Sustainability Practices: Vizcaya’s strategic plan calls for the protection of the natural environment through sustainability initiatives. The Environmental Sustainability Committee directs Vizcaya’s efforts to become a more environmentally focused, sustainably operated and resilient organization.
● Employee Compliance: All employees are required, by annually taking a workshop and achieving a passing grade, to demonstrate a baseline knowledge of environmental sustainability procedures. To support this, the Environmental Sustainability Committee has developed a guide to sustainable behavior to assist staff in making more environmentally conscious choices and behaviors.
● Composting: Vizcaya is composting an excess of 10,000 pounds of plant, food and non-office-paper waste each year from its Café, internal and external events, and farmers market vendors. Vizcaya is also publicly available compostable materials drop off site during its farmers market.
● Event Waste: Facility rental composting and recycling procedures were developed, added to Vizcaya’s vendor requirements and implemented in the fall of 2023. Nearly 100% of Vizcaya events and evening facility rentals are meeting recycling and/or composting protocols and Vizcaya aims to recycle up to 70% of its generated aluminum and glass event waste. Vizcaya, through its partners, verifies that all aluminum and glass picked up is actually recycled, weighs them, and tracks their reuse.
● Plastic Water Bottles: Goal is to eliminate single-use, non-compostable plastics to the fullest extent feasible. Single-use plastic bottles are no longer used internally, and the Cafe & Shop have collaborated to eliminate plastic bottles, serving trays and single-use plastic.
● Paper: Vizcaya has almost eliminated unneeded office paper use over the last 5 years. From its 2019 baseline of 125,000 sheets per year, Vizcaya’s usage is now below 10,000 sheets per year.
● Water: Vizcaya reduced its potable water use by 60% from its 2019 baseline, but water use continues to fluctuate as new leaks in its aging garden water system occur. Several major repairs to significant leaks have occurred, and additional leak repair and water recirculation system repairs are ongoing, and those will reduce water use by a large amount. Additional metering is being installed to detect leaks immediately and shut them off locally, which will ensure fewer large spikes in use until the entire system is replaced in the next 5 years with highly efficient and technologically advanced systems.
● Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Vizcaya is replacing gas-powered equipment with equipment that is electric or battery-powered and has replaced 40% of its Horticulture fleet with electric. The museum is also transitioning to solar power, with the goal of deriving 100% of electric energy from solar. Charging stations will be installed for electric vehicles
● BE305 Challenge: Miami-Dade County’s Building Efficiency 305 (BE305) initiative seeks to promote improvements in building performance through a suite of policies and programs that increase energy and water efficiency in large, existing private and public buildings. Vizcaya’s participation in this County program is intended to reduce water consumption and identify other building efficiencies, and Vizcaya received an award in 2023 recognizing its substantial progress.
● Achievements: Vizcaya received the 2024 Operational Sustainability Award from the American Public Gardens Association, recognizing our leadership and commitment to sustainable practices.
● Other/Future Initiatives: With the development of new facilities and landscapes in the Village, Vizcaya is seeking other ways to enhance the estate’s sustainability efforts and to educate visitors on how to do the same. Other sustainability efforts by Vizcaya include Green IT initiatives, which focus on recycling electronic devices and exploring solar power solutions for the telecommunications hub, and achieving LEED and SSI operational sustainability certifications for its buildings and landscapes.

Community Engagement and Education: As a cornerstone of Vizcaya’s community engagement efforts, sustainability is thematically woven through much of our programming. Examples can be seen in the sustainability focus of the 2022–23 CAP installation, “Wish Towers” and the 2023 Ecotopia art-making workshops and festival.
● Urban Farming and the Weekly Farmers Market: Vizcaya’s urban farming initiatives, which are growing quickly with the establishment of two dedicated positions and the redevelopment of the Village, play a pivotal role in supporting environmental sustainability. By sourcing organic-only food locally through the farmers market and helping visitors understand how to produce their own, healthy food, Vizcaya promotes environmentally friendly farming practices. Vizcaya’s composting initiatives, which are offered to Farmers Market vendors and guests, repurpose food waste, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enriching the estate’s gardens through the resultant compost.
• The Vizcaya Teen Environmental Council is a teen-led program focused on environmental preservation and conservation. As museum ambassadors, VTEC members co-create experiences, engage with the community and promote environmental sustainability.
● VTEC led Vizcaya’s participation in Food Waste Prevention Week, collecting food donations to stock community fridges throughout Miami-Dade County.
● “Wild Vizcaya” introduces children and pre-teens to concepts of sustainability through interactive experiences under the guidance of local scientists.
● The “Climate Collaborative Program” facilitates dialogues on climate change impacts and sustainable practices with local environmental leaders.
● Vizcaya hosts and participates in various community cleanup events such as Baynanza and the International Coastal Cleanup, involving over 1,100 volunteers annually.
● Partnerships: Vizcaya collaborates with numerous organizations to support its sustainability initiatives: Compost For Life; Sea Level Solutions Center FIU; Coral Restoration Foundation; Miami Waterkeeper; The CLEO Institute; Pelican Harbor Seabird Station; Biscayne National Park; NOAA; University of Miami, Department of Biology; Frost Museum of Science; CARTHE, UM; Love the Everglades Movement; Miami-Dade County; Sea Turtle Conservation Program; Southeast Fisheries Science Center; ZooMiami.

Resiliency Initiatives: Vizcaya is very vulnerable to extreme weather and the organization has endeavored to model innovative approaches to climate threats, maximizing public funding from federal, state and local sources. Recent infrastructure improvement projects are numerous and focused on climate resiliency and building efficiency.