A dozen London museums have been accredited with green tourism awards for making their buildings more sustainable and setting up educational programmes on environmental issues.

The museums received funding support from Renaissance London - a partnership set up to foster diverse, vibrant and sustainable regional museums in the capital - to take part in the Green Tourism Business Scheme.

The museums used the Renaissance grants on improvements to energy and water efficiency, waste management and biodiversity as well as other green initiatives.

Two museums - Whitehall Museum and The Horniman - received Gold Awards, while a further eight institutions were given silver and two others a bronze award.

The Whitehall Museum in Sutton received gold for exemplary practice. It changed all its lighting to LED lights, which will cut its carbon emissions by four tonnes to 733kg and save £750 in bills over the next year. It also made links with green community organisations and put on sustainability-themed workshops which attracted a new audience to the museum.

Green Tourism technical director John Proctor said: "All twelve museums taking part managed to win an award, and not everybody does that - you have to show real commitment.

"Being green is not just about technology - it is about telling the story of how people might have lived sustainably in the past, how they created things and found solutions to their problems without relying on a global infrastructure.

"That's where museums can have tremendously positive impact, encouraging people to rethink how they deal with green issues even if it's just one person changing the way they do things after a visit. As each of us starts moving forward, the whole world moves forward."

The full list of museums and their results:

Whitehall Museum - gold Horniman Museum - gold

Brunel Museum – silver

Florence Nightingale Museum - silver Freud Museum - silver

Islington Museums - silver Queen Elizabeth Hunting Lodge - silver

Geffrye Museum - silver London Transport Museum - silver

Museum of London - silver

Fashion and Textile Museum - bronze

Wandsworth Museum - bronze