# Sustainability in the Design of an Itinerant Cultural Exhibition. Study of Two Alternatives
## 4 Conclusions  
Museums and exhibitions have been endeavouring to be more sustainable and transmit the urgency of the climate crisis to society. Understanding the sustainability impact of cultural services can help achieve this goal. However, there is little evidence in the literature of studies applying assessment methods to evaluate cultural services, museums, or exhibitions. In addition, the sustainability or sustainable development concept is usually associated with the realization of activities related to conservation and preservation of cultural heritage rather than the quantitative assessment of environmental, economic, and social impacts. This study contributes to obtaining sustainability indicators and projecting itinerant exhibitions with sustainable criteria. Most studies on sustainable design have focused on product systems. In studies of service systems, sustainability is usually only analysed in the provision stage and from an environmental view. In this work, a multidimensional approach is applied. According to the LCSA method, environmental, economic, and social dimensions are considered and the GWP\({}_{100}\), C\({}_{\text{E}}\), and T\({}_{\text{W}}\) indicators are, respectively, evaluated. Moreover, a life cycle approach was applied, and all the inputs and outputs produced in each activity and used resources in the creation, provision, and end-of-life stages were analysed. This work combines descriptive and comparative sustainability studies in order to analyze and compare two different design alternatives of an itinerant exhibition. The development of an itinerant exhibition that travels to 12 destinations over 3 years has been studied. The exhibition is dedicated to didactically displaying the legacy of '[PERSON]' within an exhibition space of 300 m\({}^{2}\). In the first alternative, the contents are printed on fabric or vinyl disposed on auxiliary modular MDF walls distributed adequately to create a tour in the exhibition hall. In the second alternative, the contents are projected directly into the walls of the exhibition hall using an appropriate system of projectors and speakers. The analysis of service sustainability is conducted by combining descriptive and comparative study types. Thus, the most sustainable alternative is selected, and the most significant factors affecting the sustainability of each alternative are determined. In each sustainability dimension, the impacts of audiovisual exhibitions are lower than those of printed exhibitions. The greenhouse emissions, execution costs, and working times are reduced by 4.4 tons of CO2-eq, EUR 25,173, and 1648 h, respectively, along the entire tour of the cultural service development. Sustainability analysis with a life cycle perspective facilitates a comparative study of the two exhibition alternatives. The mass of materials required in the creation stage of the printed exhibition was considerably higher than that in the audiovisual exhibition. Thus, the incidence of different activities and processes associated to the creation stage (i.e., raw materials obtaining, manufacturing, transport, assembly) showed a notable decrease in the case of the audiovisual alternative. Reductions of 13.4 tons of CO2-eq, EUR 19,300, and 960 h were evaluated in the GWP100, C\({}_{\text{E}}\), and T\({}_{\text{W}}\) indicators of the service creation stage, respectively. The use of less material is also observed at the end-of-life stage. Particularly, dismantling activities involve a significant reduction in cost and working time. During the provision stage, the energy consumption by the equipment was considerably higher in the audiovisual exhibition. Thus, an increase of 8.9 tons of CO2-eq is evaluated in the GWP100 indicator, and operation costs increase by EUR 2200 along the entire tour exhibition development. The final values of sustainability indicators show that in the studied cases the audiovisual exhibition alternative is more sustainable than the printed exhibition.