COP30 is just the beginning

Heritage Now! is the campaign voice of the Decarbonizing the Built Environment through Heritage (DBTH) initiative, a project of the Climate Heritage Network led by Built Buildings Lab. Launching at COP30, the campaign will run through June of 2026 and include continued communications, virtual convenings, and advocacy training.

By joining Heritage Now!, you are contributing to an official initiative of the COP30 Action Agenda. DBTH will report the impacts of the campaign to the UNFCCC annually through 2028 to record our progress in supporting policymakers and heritage organizations in accelerating heritage-informed decarbonization.

Read below to learn how your organization can play a larger role in advancing built heritage solutions within climate policy through the campaign.

Sign up

Heritage Now! is the campaign launched by the Decarbonizing the Built Environment through Heritage initiative, which calls for policy transformation to unlock the potential of heritage-informed decarbonization solutions in the built environment.

Over the next nine months, the campaign will:

  • Make concrete policy recommendations to integrate heritage knowledge, solutions, and voices into climate policy

  • Elevate proven heritage solutions from communities, practitioners, and heritage organizations up to policymakers

  • Strengthen a community of advocates for culture-based climate action.

By joining the campaign, you will become part of coordinated messaging, communication, and virtual programming across Climate Heritage Network members and partners.

About the campaign

What do collaborators do?

  • Amplify key policy messages of the campaign within your network

  • Create content ranging from social media posts to publications to convenings to be shared publicly through the campaign

  • Speak at events and workshops hosted by other campaign partners, and/or host speakers from campaign partners at your events

  • Track and report on the impacts of your campaign initiatives to support Decarbonizing the Built Environment through Heritage reporting as a UN Collective Climate Initiative

  • Contribute resources to the Decarbonizing the Built Environment through Heritage project atlas (developed as part of the forthcoming Decarbonizing the Built Environment through Heritage Toolkit) to expand the repository of information.

The Road to COP30

  • In April of 2024, Lori Ferriss represented DBTH and Climate Heritage Network at the Annual Assembly of the UNEP Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction. Her role was to represent the importance of cultural heritage in building sector climate action and identify key levers for impact for DBTH across workstreams including circular economy, sufficiency, and market transformation.

  • One of the 2025 Sharm El Sheikh Mitigation Ambition and Implementation Work Programme topics is “enabling mitigation solutions in the waste sector, including through circular economy approaches.” This topic will be explored at the MWP’s Sixth Global Dialogue, whose outputs are expected to inform COP30’s mitigation decision. At SB62, working with the LGMA constituency group led by ICLEI, CHN representatives were able to intervene on the culture and heritage dimensions of circular economy during a planning session for the Sixth Dialogue organized by the MWP Co-Chairs. Learn more about CHN’s actions at SB62 here.

  • The Sharm El Sheikh Mitigation Ambition and Implementation Work Programme (MWP) has proved a key UNFCCC battleground on fossil-fuel phaseout and other contentious GHG issues. The MWP’s Sixth Global Dialogue, whose outputs are expected to inform COP30’s mitigation decision, will focus on “enabling mitigation solutions in the waste sector, including through circular economy approaches.” Following our intervention at SB62 on this subject, DBTH made an official submission on the role of heritage in a circular economy.

  • DBTH will represent the important role of heritage-informed decarbonization in Addis Ababa, including at the MWP 6th Global Dialogue on waste and circularity.

  • DBTH participated in a meeting of the UNFCCC COP30 Activation Group 19 on Culture, Cultural Heritage Protection, and Climate Action and the SHIFT convening, co-hosted by the German Sustainable Building Council and Architecture 2030, advocating for heritage-transformed approaches to built environment policy in the global north. Read more here.

  • Heritage Now! will officially launch at COP30 in the Buildings and Cooling Pavilion and in at an official UNFCCC Side Event. Follow Built Buildings Lab on LinkedIn to stay up to date.

Interested in joining?