Towards a New Heritage Financing Tool for Sustainable Development

The man-made world is undergoing dramatic transformations through globalization and the migration of rural populations to urban areas. All our cities, towns and human settlements will be impacted by this change. Despite the acknowledgement of the issue and the mandate to conserve cultural and natural heritage as point 11.4 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, governmental and philanthropic support have not been significant enough to implement a global conservation strategy on the scale needed. Local heritage organizations, whether public sector or non-profit, are chronically short of funds and have few prospects of gaining support from outside sources. In order to be successful on a larger scale, heritage preservation must be coupled with planning and development to support community growth and the mission of sustainable development. This paper explores how a cultural heritage investment fund could work globally to attract funds from lenders and investors, and re-invest those funds in community revitalization with heritage as its centerpiece. Three urban case histories illustrate how financing can catalyze the mutually reinforcing benefits of heritage preservation and the goals of social inclusion, environmental conservation, and the creation of circular economies.