Deborah Scacco, an artist who staged Laboratory for the Future during a two-year residency at Santa Monica City Yards, closed the show by describing how the project used local materials, staff portraits and reuse strategies to reduce waste and surface the environmental footprint of exhibitions.

Scacco said the exhibition's centerpiece, a ceramic work titled "n 22," was made from core samples taken from a Santa Monica well and described it as "an accurate map of the water system of Santa Monica." She also noted that the show avoided vinyl, substituted recyclable paper blueprints, reused plinths and frames, and displayed banners of City Yards employees to highlight "the very quiet and often thankless work of keeping a city running."

DeVille Cohen, co-founder of Artist Commit, told attendees that Artist Commit grew from pandemic-era collaboration among New York artists and galleries and that the group's Climate Impact Report was developed to give artists a practical way to measure and reduce exhibition impacts. "The Climate Impact Report was the first tool that we developed because we said, in order to be able to understand our impact, we need to start measuring it," Cohen said, explaining the project's four core categories: production, energy, travel/shipping and afterlife.

Both speakers emphasized practical, incremental changes rather than perfection. Scacco cited an example of an institutional change: "The Huntington's dumpster was maybe 10% full" after adopting reuse practices, and Craft Contemporary now aims to have exhibition waste fit into a cup. Cohen and Scacco described dozens of case studies and said roughly 40 Climate Impact Reports are now available on Artist Commit's website.

The pair also outlined an education initiative to make the Climate Impact Report methodology more accessible to students and instructors. Cohen said Artist Commit is building an online, intuitive platform and modular curricula so faculty and adjuncts can adopt sections of the reporting process in existing courses. Scacco described classroom work at Cal State Dominguez Hills and Pitzer College where materials and afterlife planning have been integrated into student projects.

During a public Q&A, an audience member and the presenters discussed measurement limits. Cohen acknowledged that while carbon calculations are a useful model, many material impacts lack standardized life-cycle data and require project-specific categories. Scacco and Cohen said the report format should be flexible and follow the "spirit of the project," allowing artists to create new categories when conventional metrics do not fit.

The event concluded with Scacco thanking City Yards staff and attendees and noting a forthcoming publication that will document the larger arc of the Laboratory for the Future project.