Evaluation criteria for a circular adaptive reuse of Cultural Heritage and Landscapes

Culture has a central role in the achievement of sustainable development: without a culture of responsibility, the Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development remain unattained. The major challenges of sustainability, ranking from issues of climate change to poverty alleviation, from improving productivity to social inclusion, interdepend, call for and require strong commitment from the Scientific and Academic Institutions. In this regards, the UNESCO Director-General recently pointed out that: "Science becomes the very heart of sustainable development strategies,". To meet these challenges, it is deemed necessary to contribute to the scientific knowledge production by developing new approaches, methods and technical tools that incentives and inspires the reconfiguration of didactic paths, scientific research and vocational training. Not surprisingly, it has been noted repeatedly that "the challenge of sustainability is won or lost in the city". Indeed, the New Urban Agenda presented at Quito by UN Habitat suggested a series of indications to achieve sustainable development in the concrete space of cities. This New Urban Agenda, while reaffirming the call to the category of responsibility, it emphasizes on the central role of culture (par 124) before introducing the idea of civic responsibility (par 156). Culture, cultural heritage and cultural landscape (which include natural heritage) are drivers of European economic long-term growth, social/political cohesion and environmental preservation. They can drive a new European development model based on the circularization of processes (the circular economy): exploiting synergies in the business/financing sector, in the social, cultural and institutional dimension through innovative public-private-civic partnerships for the management of commons, and environmental synergies through adaptive reuse of buildings and landscapes, of their embodied energy and local materials. The regeneration of the city certainly requires technical and technological innovations. But it also requires the regeneration of the "civil culture" of its inhabitants. How can you think of building a society / city where you work together, live together, cooperate to achieve common goals if there is no civil education / training? If you do not promote diffusion of ideas on building active citizenship, attention to the common good, self-organization, subsidiarity ... If there is no direction, shared common sense? Our proposal is to build on the approach proposed by the Faro Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (2005), which, introduces the concept of "heritage community", and emphasizes on the ability of cultural heritage to make communities. According to the 2014 Revision of the World Urbanisation Prospects report, produced by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations, 54% of the world population lives in urban areas and it is expected to increase to 66% by 2050. Considering the growing climate change threat and resource deficiency and in order to ensure long-term sustainability, cities must decouple their social well-being and economic growth from resource depletion. How? by enforcing a multidimensional and multisectoral resource-efficiency approach applied to the natural system and built environment in cooperation and through the active engagement of the multiple actors at stake; individuals (users and producers) and public and private institutions. Adopting a more sustainable footprint is beneficial at all scales (macro, meso and micro), in terms of reducing raw materials extraction and exploitation, energy consumption, CO2 emissions, etc... Moreover, it offers a better quality of life to local residents and improves the city's attractiveness for new residents and tourists. Cultural heritage adaptive reuse has been recognised by a number of key international players, among others, UNESCO, European Commission, Council of Europe, World Bank, as a driver for sustainable economic, social, cultural and environmental development. Cultural heritage adaptive reuse is a restorative, regenerative and a sustainable form of conservation that extends the life of our cherished heritage, stimulate civic pride and responsibility, and preserve cultural values for future generations. It is not only a value bearer and a cost-efficient strategy, but also a sustainable approach that enables the reduction of depletion of raw materials, decrease transport and energy consumption and dispersion, contributes to lower waste and landfill environmental costs and to scaling down the production of carbon emissions. Thus, in this paper we aim at arguing that circular adaptive reuse is key to fulfilling the sustainability agenda. The production of new knowledge on the multidimensional benefits of heritage and landscape reuse/regeneration and the promotion of a culture of responsibility for the achievement of Sustainable Development are here proposed as necessary conditions to conserve, safeguard, regenerate and valorise European cultural and natural heritage and make it a driver of European sustainable growth strategies. Through this bespoke knowledge production and a renewed civil culture, new business opportunities can be exploited in the perspective of the civil economy / sharing economy / circular economy. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to review the existing literature on circular economy in relation to adaptive reuse of cultural heritage/landscape, and to advance a new epistemological findings about the benefits of adopting the proposed approach together with a methodological multicriteria for evaluating best practices of circular adaptive reuse of Cultural Heritage, towards the implementation of the New Urban Agenda, the Encyclical "Laudato Sii for the Care of the Common House" and the emerging circular city/territory development model.