What does sustainability mean in a corporate museum? Learning from CUBO, Museo di Impresa del Gruppo Unipol

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Pubblicato

2025-12-22

Fascicolo

Sezione

Cultural institutions facing the challenge of sustainability: from theory to practice

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13138/2039-2362/3701

Autori

  • Eleonora Carloni Politecnico di Milano

Abstract

Corporate museums lay at the crossroad between the worlds of business and cultural heritage. In academia they have been mainly studied as strategic assets which managers use with a means-end logic. Limited attention has been given to their social role, that of being a potential leverage in corporate sustainability agenda and, more importantly, at the service of society’s sustainable development. The present study aims to fill this knowledge gap by exploring: How is sustainability framed and measured in a corporate museum? A collaborative action research project with CUBO, Museo d’impresa del Gruppo Unipol, led to the development of a performance measurement system to assess the museum’s sustainability performance, from which practitioners of this sector but also of other heritage institutions could take inspiration for future implementations. The paper also offers a discussion on the role of sustainability measurement to combine the dual nature of corporate museums.

I musei d'impresa vivono a cavallo tra il mondo delle aziende e il mondo dei beni culturali. In accademia, sono per lo più studiati come asset strategici che i manager utilizzano con una logica utilitaristica. Risulta invece poco studiato il loro ruolo per il sociale, sia come potenziali leve delle strategie di sostenibilità delle aziende, sia come attori al servizio della collettività e del suo sviluppo sostenibile. L’articolo si chiede dunque: Come viene inquadrata e misurata la sostenibilità in un museo d’impresa? Un progetto in collaborazione con CUBO, Museo d'impresa del Gruppo Unipol, ha portato allo sviluppo di un sistema di misurazione della performance di sostenibilità del museo, da cui gli operatori del settore, ma anche altre istituzioni culturali, potranno trarre ispirazione per future implementazioni. L’articolo offre infine una discussione sul ruolo della misurazione della sostenibilità per coniugare la doppia anima dei musei di impresa.

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Come citare

Carloni, E. (2025). What does sustainability mean in a corporate museum? Learning from CUBO, Museo di Impresa del Gruppo Unipol. Il Capitale Culturale. Studies on the Value of Cultural Heritage, (32), 221–257. https://doi.org/10.13138/2039-2362/3701