The Role of Cultural Heritage in Sustainable Development: Multidimensional Indicators as Decision-Making Tool

The role of cultural heritage in sustainable development

Francesca Nocca (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II)

The paradigm shift towards a more humanistic and ecological paradigm evoked by United Nations and the European Green Deal is increasingly required in this period of growing unsustainability, especially during the (ongoing) COVID-19 pandemic. The challenge today is to reduce poverty and inequalities, while preserving the vitality of natural ecosystems and ensuring inclusive economic growth and wellbeing, both now and in the future, thus including future generations. To this end, new urban development models and new tools for operationalizing them are necessary. In this framework, cultural heritage conservation and regeneration can play a significant role, producing multidimensional benefits, in economic, environmental, social and cultural terms. The New Urban Agenda (NUA) by United Nations recognizes cultural heritage (both tangible and intangible) as an important factor for urban sustainable development. Furthermore, the necessity to “strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage” to achieve sustainable development is highlighted in the Target 11.4 of the 2030 Agenda and related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, both the 2030 Agenda (80, 94, 104, 115, 136, 138, 147, 158, 159, 161, 172 paragraphs) and the New Urban Agenda (points 126–160) focus on the need to move from principles to actions highlighting the central role of evaluation processes in the achievement of all sustainable development goals. The evaluation tools are absolutely necessary in decision-making processes for urban sustainable development in order to assess and monitor the efficiency and effectiveness of plans and projects. The decision-making processes and evaluation processes cannot be focused only on financial issue. Considering the complexity of cultural heritage (in terms of different values, interests, needs, point of views, involved stakeholders, etc.), but in general the complexity of the city systems, other impacts (social, cultural, environmental), in addition to financial ones, need to be considered in the evaluation processes. Although many international discussions are related to the role of cultural heritage in sustainable development, they develop only on theoretical level. It is necessary to produce empirical evidence about its contribution to improve economic, social, cultural and environmental productivity of the city. It is necessary to demonstrate that cultural heritage conservation/regeneration is an investment and not a cost. To date, an evaluation framework (a set of indicators) for evaluating cultural heritage conservation and regeneration projects, including simultaneously all the aforementioned multidimensional impacts, does not yet exist. The study “The Role of Cultural Heritage in Sustainable Development: Multidimensional Indicators as Decision-Making Tool”, in particular, concerns the development of an indicators matrix for assessing the multidimensional “productivity” of cultural heritage conservation/regeneration projects. This matrix has been elaborated starting from the analysis of 40 case studies. The indicators cover the four pillars of sustainability (according to Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe - CHCFE): cultural, social, environmental, economic. Furthermore, from many critical reflections on the case studies analysed, the indicators have been subdivided into nine impact categories: Tourism and recreation, Creative, cultural and innovative activities, Typical local productions, Environment and natural capital, Social capital/cohesion and inclusion, Real estate, Financial return, Cultural value of properties/landscape, Wellbeing.