part 1 - Iccrom

MEASURING HERITAGE CONSERVATION PERFORMANCE
6th International Seminar on Urban Conservation
Air travel in particular can contribute enormous
amounts of greenhouse gases that are pumped into
the atmosphere, something that is often intentionally
or unintentionally overlooked. A round-trip
economy class flight from New York to Shanghai, for
instance, contributes 2,000 kg of CO 2
(International
Civil Aviation Organization, 2010). Air travel should
therefore be considered in all conservation activities,
including human and materials transportation
for conservation projects, meetings, seminars and
training courses. A number of methods to calculate
carbon emissions have been created (see Carbon
Footprint, 2010; The Nature Conservancy, 2010),
which could be easily incorporated into integrated
methodologies for measuring the results of conservation
actions.
Preventive conservation of collections may also be
very demanding in terms of the energy required for
environmental control, especially air conditioning,
which produces large carbon emissions. Measurements
of energy bills should therefore be monitored
and targets regarding the efficiency and possible
reduction of energy use should be established. In
recent years, a special focus has been given to developing
sustainable approaches for the control of environmental
conditions within museums, particularly
by looking at the possibilities offered by traditional
building techniques (Toledo, 2006).
In addition to the emission of greenhouse gases,
there are many conservation materials and process
that can have a considerable negative impact on the
environment. They include the use and discard of
solvents and other toxic substances such as biocides,
adhesives and consolidants, as well as the discard
of various types of solid waste such as packaging
material used in collections, and rubble produced by
architectural restoration. Some indicators for such
impacts may be found in Hammond et al. (1995, p.
20).
7.3. An example of environmentallyaware
methodology
One of the few methodologies that considers environmental
impacts as criteria for evaluation is the
National Trust’s Triple Bottom Line Tool, which aims
at assessing the impact that conservation activities
have on people, finance and the environment. The
theoretical underpinnings of this approach derive
from sustainable frameworks, in particular the
World Commission on Environment and Development,
which defines sustainable development as
“development that meets the needs and aspirations
of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs” (World
Commission on Environment and Development,
1987, p. 43).
The criteria of the Triple Bottom Line Tool include
energy and water consumption, as well as waste and
carbon footprint. This assessment tool includes not
only the impact of building and conservation activities,
but also indirect activities such as human and
materials transportation related to the projects and
the amounts of greenhouse emissions they produce.
In summary, the environmental aspect is also a
highly overlooked area of assessment of conservation
activities, although some countries have started
to incorporate these issues in their evaluation methodologies.
It is beyond the scope of this paper to
review all the literature of environmental indicators
but a good review can be found in Niemi and
McDonald (2004).
Conclusions
Due to the fact that definitions and aims of heritage
conservation have widened during the last decades,
there is a need to develop new approaches and methodologies
for assessing the performance of conservation
activities. One of the most important tendencies
in conservation has been the shifting of attention
from cultural heritage to the people that value such
heritage.
There is a growing need to evaluate the efficacy
of conservation activities. However, indicators and
methodologies of assessment are much needed in
order to capture the necessary data to monitor the
conservation of values entailed in cultural heritage,
as well as the economic, social and environmental
impacts that conservation activities may produce.
Assessments are needed in order to communicate
to funding bodies, policy makers and the interested
public with sound and convincing data about the
possible benefits of conservation. However, it must
be stressed that both positive and negative impacts
of all aspects involved in conservation practice
should be assessed. In this sense, it is emphasized
that the aim of assessments should not be to demonstrate
the benefits of conservation, but to evaluate
the performance of this activity in order to guide
future interventions, maximize benefits and avoid
negative impacts.
In trying to evaluate the performance of conservation,
a comprehensive stance has to be taken in order
to avoid overlooking the multidimensional nature of
cultural heritage and the material and nonmaterial
Alonso, V. I. & V. M. Meurs. 2012. Assessing the performance of conservation activities. In Zancheti, S. M. & K. Similä, eds. Measuring
heritage conservation performance, pp. 1-14. Rome, ICCROM.
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