Bring built heritage into the heart of climate policy.
Heritage Now! is a global campaign to harness the potential of built heritage for a resilient, climate positive and just future.
Why now?
Most attention in policy is going to new buildings, but the majority of carbon emissions today are associated with operating the buildings that already exist.
Most climate policy treats heritage as an afterthought, but heritage solutions apply to most of the built environment, including new buildings.
Most climate solutions in the building sector are firmly rooted in technical knowledge, but heritage offers proven alternative approaches that inspire people to action through culture.
Heritage Now! promotes Heritage-Informed Decarbonization.
Heritage-Informed Decarbonization applies wisdom, practices, and built places of the past to minimize greenhouse gas emissions from the built environment in the present and future.
Recommendations for Heritage-Informed Decarbonization
Climate action is both a technological and cultural challenge, and built heritage is uniquely placed to unite technological and cultural solutions. Heritage-informed decarbonization both directly reduces greenhouse gas emissions from the built environment and catalyzes needed cultural shifts to reimagine a sustainable and resilient future.
Learn from the greatest living laboratory for climate adaptation – the existing built environment.
The places that make up built heritage both illustrate how human habitation has responded to climate over millennia and provide a unique test bed for integrating old and new climate technologies for future climate adaptation.
Prioritize continued building (re)use to eliminate emissions.
There is no pathway to a livable climate without addressing existing buildings. Heritage-informed approaches to (re)use both avoid embodied emissions of new construction while reducing operational emissions of existing buildings and preserve sense of place.
Implement place-based solutions to build, maintain, and live sustainably.
From bio-based, local materials to context-specific passive comfort strategies, heritage both offers scientifically-supported lessons for low-carbon design, construction, maintenance, and use and fosters a culture of care that passes down local practices.
Reframe building waste as a resource.
Heritage construction and maintenance practices around the world are founded in circularity both demonstrating how to extend the use of buildings and materials and supporting a marketplace that sees resources in place of waste.
Include heritage and indigenous voices in climate policymaking.
The inclusion of heritage perspectives in decision-making both connects planning and policy with vital knowledge of how to build in balance with the environment and engages communities in the all-of-society response needed to address climate change.
is launching the Recommendations to global leaders at COP30.
By adding your endorsement, you:
Join a community of activists and leaders
Send a clear signal to policymakers
Contribute to the COP30 Action Agenda
Endorse the Recommendations and help build momentum for Heritage Now!
Heritage Now! is endorsed by
Heritage Now! is part of the Climate Heritage Network initiative Decarbonizing the Built Environment Through Heritage (DBTH), led by Built Buildings Lab in collaboration with Architecture 2030 and the University of Lagos Architecture + Urbanism Hub. Visit the Built Buildings Lab DBTH webpage to learn more about the project.