The Commitment for Climate Action is a global initiative that unites three of the leading international bodies within the conservation sector for cultural heritage – IIC, ICCROM, and ICOM-CC. Our joint commitment mobilizes an international coalition of leading sustainability and net zero initiatives with the aim of unlocking the potential in our sector to contribute to the global agenda and action on climate change.

We are in a Climate and Environmental Emergency. Countries and people worldwide, including thousands of conservators and cultural heritage professionals, acknowledge the crisis. We know that urgent action is needed to address the reported unsustainable trajectory towards four degrees of warming. Global goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 and even earlier to 2030 within our sector, can only be achieved through transformative action.

As intergovernmental and international professional organizations working closely with conservators and cultural heritage professionals, it is both our duty and our passion to advocate for cultural heritage. We recognise that the climate crisis represents one of the greatest threats to that heritage in a world with depleting natural resources, growing inequality and social injustice. In response to these challenges, it is incumbent on all of us to adapt, innovate and pioneer change.

The signatories not only commit to tackling carbon emissions and achieving net zero within their own organisations, but also to promoting our collective ambition to align with the UN 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.

The challenges we face, both now and over the next few years, are going to be among the most difficult – and interesting - in our history. We will only make a difference if we choose to work together as a sector.

IIC, ICCROM and ICOM-CC