News

Bruynzeel receives €18 million order in Canada, the largest in history

07-06-2023
Royal British Columbia Museum

Press release

Panningen, June 08, 2023 

Bruynzeel receives €18 million order in Canada, the largest in history 

Collection storage at Royal British Columbia Museum on Vancouver Island 

Bruynzeel Storage Systems has received the largest order in its corporate history with the collection storage of the Royal British Columbia Museum in Canada. The new Collections and Research Building (CRB) will open in 2026 and will store an impressive collection of more than 7 million artefacts and British Columbia’s archives. It is one of the most important history museums in Canada. The current museum building dates back to 1886 and attracts millions of visitors annually. The value of the new building project is over €180 million. Of the total area of 15,000m², Bruynzeel furnishes almost half with its storage systems. It is also one of the first projects to be built with low carbon steel. Bruynzeel is the global market leader in storage systems for libraries, archives and museums. 

Museum
Museum
Museum
Museum

Sustainability important criteria in procurement 

Located on Vancouver Island, in a suburb of capital Victoria, the museum offers a rich overview of the history of the province of British Columbia. The new building not only gives the museum more space, but it also contributes to the museum's greater sustainability goals. By choosing a solution with partially movable aisles, the building's space is used as efficiently as possible. This saves money, time and CO2 emissions. Mobile solutions can reduce space requirements by as much as 50%. 

Delta hermetically sealed museum grade cabinets

Cooperation with US subsidiary Delta

Bruynzeel is carrying out a significant part of the project with its U.S. subsidiary Delta Designs Ltd, which was acquired in March '23. Delta Designs is known for its top-of-the-line hermetically sealed museum grade cabinets designed to preserve fragile objects. 

The Kansas-based company has worked with leading institutions like the Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, MIT Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, the Smithsonian, the Art Institute of Chicago, Harvard and many other notable Ivy League Universities.

Together, Bruynzeel and Delta offer the best total solutions for museums, institutions and precious collections. Bruynzeel works with respected clients such as Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, Centre Pompidou, CC-NL (CollectieCentrum Nederland), the Louvre, Rijksmuseum, Science Museum, Stedelijk Museum, Van Gogh Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, the Vatican and the University of St Andrews. 

Delta Designs LTD

Low Carbon steel

The systems supplied by Bruynzeel for the Royal British Columbia Museum (art racks, static and mobile shelving, cabinets) are fitted with Bruynzeel GreenSteel® wherever possible. This steel provides a CO2 saving of more than 90% compared to the common standard in the market. This makes it currently the most sustainable steel option. For this, Bruynzeel is working with Arcelor Mittal and accredited XCarb® certificates. The next goal is to be able to use hydrogen-produced steel from 2030, Bruynzeel GreenSteel® 2.0. This represents the next important step towards climate neutral steel. Bruynzeel's ambition is to significantly increase production with GreenSteel® in the coming years. 

Bruynzeel also recently implemented Bruynzeel GreenSteel® in the new sustainable library of the famous Scottish ´University of St Andrews´. This is one of the largest and oldest research libraries in the UK. The university was founded in 1413 and the impressive library has a collection of more than one million books, some of which dates back to the early 15th century.

Alexander Collot d'Escury- CEO Bruynzeel Storage Systems.jpg

Alexander Collot d'Escury, CEO of Bruynzeel Storage Systems: "We are extremely proud that the management of Royal British Columbia Museum has chosen Bruynzeel for the storage of its impressive collections. Important in acquiring the contract was sustainability. Not only do we apply Bruynzeel GreenSteel® wherever possible, but we are also the most sustainable supplier in the industry. In this way, organizations can contribute to significant changes throughout the supply chain and a future with minimal CO2 impact. We deliver the highest quality storage systems from Bruynzeel and our new subsidiary Delta Designs to ensure long-term preservation of precious collections"

Climate neutral

Bruynzeel has been climate neutral in its own operations (Scope 1 and 2, GHG protocol¹) since 2021. A renewed audit was conducted by Deloitte for 2022. Bruynzeel has committed to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi²) to achieve 'Net Zero' for Scope 1, 2 and 3 by 2045. As part of the focus on continuous improvements, energy consumption per product produced has been reduced by more than 10% by 2022.

Bruynzeel storage systems has the lowest CO2 footprint in the industry, and as "The Footprint Reduction Company," Bruynzeel aims to further strengthen its position as the most sustainable manufacturer in the coming years. 

Illustrations

Note¹: https://ghgprotocol.org/sites/default/files/standards/ghg-protocol-revised.pdf

Note²: https://sciencebasedtargets.org/companies-taking-action#table

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