Last year, four members of The Great Spa Towns of Europe joined Preserving Legacies’ Climate Custodian Cohort, a 3-year programme that helps heritage custodians build resilience against climate change.
Today, ‘Heritage Adapts!’ has launched as a new global campaign! At least 3,000 sites and practices are taking locally-led climate adaptation action by 2030 – a collective pledge taken by local heritage stewards.
The initiative equips them with the technical guidance, localised data access and global connections to help them succeed.
Recognised under the U.N.’s Global Climate Action Agenda as one of 120 promising climate delivery plans, Heritage Adapts! demonstrates how protecting heritage can strengthen community resilience.
Chiara Ronchini, the Secretary General of The Great Spa Towns of Europe, was one of the four members who enrolled on Preserving Legacies’ Climate Custodian Cohort.
A crisis threatening heritage, community resilience
The launch of Heritage Adapts! comes as climate risks to heritage continue to grow. Climate-related hazards across UNESCO-designated sites have increased 40% in a decade, and more than one in four could hit potentially irreversible tipping points by 2050, according to a recent UNESCO report. But this data covers only a fraction of the world’s heritage; most sites and practices that communities value remain untracked by international frameworks. That gap is itself part of the problem. Heritage adaptation also still remains largely absent from climate finance and policy, leaving many stewards with limited funding and support. Yet heritage is not just at risk— it is part of the solution, a source of community resilience and time-tested solutions relevant today.
Heritage Adapts! — with its founding coalition of more than 100 organizations and stewards globally — aims to fill that gap and accelerate climate adaptation for all types of heritage.
“As the world hurtles toward 2 degrees Celsius of warming, we are in a race to help communities—and the culture and heritage that sustain them—adapt while there is still time. The U.N.’s new Global Goal on adapting cultural heritage can be transformative, but only if it fuels real support for every site and cultural practice. Around the world, partners are uniting to urgently seize this moment. That shared resolve is the driving force behind Heritage Adapts!”
– Andrew Potts, Policy Director, Preserving Legacies
For more information, visit heritageadapts.org
The Great Spa Towns of Europe
The Great Spa Towns of Europe is a serial, transnational UNESCO World Heritage Site comprised of eleven spa towns across seven European countries. Together, these towns comprise one ‘property’ .
From the hundreds of spa towns across Europe, these eleven are the most authentic examples of the European spa phenomenon. As epicentres for social, cultural and political innovations, these spa towns shaped architecture, urban design, medicine, health and wellness tourism and modern European identity.
The site was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List on 24th July 2021; the highest international recognition for global cultural and natural heritage sites. The Site is managed by The Great Spa Towns of Europe Association, formally registered in August 2022 in Baden bei Wien, Austria.