Our story
Frogmore Paper Mill in Hemel Hempstead has embarked on a ground-breaking project aimed at measuring, tracking, and enhancing climate-positive behaviours within the community. As the world’s first mechanised paper mill and the pioneer of commercial-scale paper recycling since 1890, Frogmore Mill carries a legacy of innovation that we are proud to build upon. Today, as a working industrial heritage site, it provides visitors with a unique opportunity to witness live, hands-on demonstrations of the entire recycling process—an experience that is both powerful and transformative.
To maximise the impact of our rich heritage and the vital sustainability stories it can tell, Frogmore Mill has partnered with the University of Essex, bringing a Behavioural Science Researcher on board for a 24-month collaboration. Together, we will explore innovative ways to engage visitors in recycling and sustainability, gathering and publishing valuable data that will inform long-term development plans and significantly enhance our environmental education programmes.
In the short term, our goal is to deliver effective eco-education to local stakeholders, promoting more climate-friendly behaviours. In the medium term, we aspire for Frogmore Paper Mill to become a leader in the sustainability-heritage sector, serving as a model for other organisations as climate ambassadors. We will develop methods for direct (e.g., reducing on-site carbon emissions) and indirect (e.g., enabling the local community to adopt environmentally positive behaviours) decarbonisation. Long-term, our vision is to transform Frogmore Mill into the UK’s first Eco-Industrial Heritage Attraction, complete with a new museum experience featuring immersive exhibitions that educate visitors on the sustainability of paper-making and practical activities that revive near-extinct practices like letter-pressing.
We aim to achieve these objectives through rigorous market research and collaboration with the University of Essex to collect empirical evidence on the most effective environmentally-friendly behaviour interventions within a heritage, education, and commercial context. These interventions will be specifically tailored to the paper heritage industry, demonstrating how paper-making is not only a sustainable practice but also a leader in the journey towards Net-Zero.
This project is born out of the urgent need to address the climate crisis. It is widely acknowledged that behaviour change is just as crucial as new green technologies, regulation, and policy in reducing carbon emissions. Culture and the arts must play a pivotal role in fulfilling this need. Currently, there are no figureheads within the sustainability-heritage industry, and we at Frogmore Mill feel it is our duty, as proponents of green initiatives, to lead by example and inspire other organisations to launch their own green initiatives. Another key motivation for this project is the need to preserve the heritage of the paper industry, which is on the brink of extinction in the UK. With over two centuries of continuous paper production, Frogmore Mill—the world’s first mechanised paper mill—embodies a tradition that must not be forgotten. If heritage organisations like ours do not adapt, they risk disappearing forever.
Despite the setback of the arson attack in 2022, which destroyed many of the Mill’s artefacts, we are determined to reaffirm our importance to the UK, not only through our rich history but also through our actions to reduce carbon emissions.
In addition to the UK Innovation Fund and the University of Essex, we have initiated preliminary consultations with Sunnyside Rural Trust, Dacorum Borough Council, Hertfordshire County Council, Visit Herts, the Hertfordshire Association of Museums, Buglife, The Boxmoor Trust, and Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust. These partnerships will further inform our plans and help us understand current standards of environmental education and conservation efforts.
Our advice
Although the project is in its early stages, we believe that others will benefit from recognising the value in listening to others’ stories. Being a heritage site, stories breathe life into historical artefacts, revealing their true significance - not just in how things were done in the past, but in how they continue to shape our present and future.
Our metrics
To measure our own green initiatives, we are recording our own carbon footprint and delivering our carbon reduction plan, exploring methods of decreasing electricity usage and also exploring the use of renewable energy providers. Currently, we have a small carbon footprint as all of our paper is made with recyclable materials and is recyclable itself but the site has huge potential to showcase a range of renewable energy options. We have an existing borehole (ground source heating), running water and over an acre of south facing roof space, ideal for solar PV.
We also aim to measure the impact on stakeholders through assessing their engagement with and attitudes towards climate issues, climate-friendly behaviours and the heritage of the paper industry before and after receiving an eco-education and visits to Frogmore Mill. Measurement tools we might use are evaluating how eco-literate people become after visits to the mill or whether they are able to recognise misconceptions within the paper industry (e.g., going paperless is not always environmentally friendly as the level of e-space used by cloud storages can have a greater environmental impact than having paper copies).
We also aim to understand the transport choices of individuals visiting the mill and whether they choose green alternatives on returning visits or through follow-up surveys.
