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The Carbon Cost of Culture: How the Art World Is Confronting Its Shipping Emissions

From disposable crates to long-haul air freight, the way the art world moves work is getting a climate-conscious rethink.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in July 2025. In the race to deliver masterpieces to the world’s top art fairs—from Art Basel to Frieze—the global art market faces an increasingly pressing dilemma: how to meet the fast-paced needs of the global glitterati without compounding the climate crisis. While the international travel of collectors, curators and gallerists is carbon-intensive, so too are the logistics behind the art fairs they travel to. With transportation as one of the most significant contributors to the art sector’s carbon footprint, this issue can no longer be left on the margins.

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An industry on the move 

Fine art logistics is a uniquely complex and specialized field. Every artwork, whether a centuries-old sculpture or a modern 3D installation piece, requires bespoke handling, often under climate control, with security and insurance considerations. This means crates, packing materials, specialized transit and, frequently, air freight.

According to the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC), transport accounts for nearly 80 percent of a typical gallery’s carbon emissions, with air freight by far the most polluting. A 2021 study conducted by U.K. non-profit Julie’s Bicycle estimated the global art sector’s total carbon footprint at 70 million tonnes of CO₂e each year,........

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