The Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (CIfA) is pleased to have joined the Heritage Climate Network. The Network was launched in September 2019 and already over 70 organisations globally have signed up to its Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
Through engagement with the Network, it is intended that arts, culture and heritage actors will be able to mutually support each other to increase understanding of their role in climate adaptation and mitigation, as well as to inform climate policies.
The MoU commits signatories to strengthening their efforts to address climate change and support communities in achieving the decarbonization goals and other ambitions of the Paris Agreement, emphasising that
- arts, culture and heritage are both impacted by climate change and an asset for climate action; and
- arts, culture and heritage (including sites and landscapes, institutions and collections as well as creativity, intangible heritage, traditional ways of knowing and practices) constitute an invaluable resource to help communities reduce greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen adaptive capacity, even while the risks to those resources from climate impacts must also be addressed.
To help scope CIfA’s commitment under the MoU, CIfA‘s Advisory Council has commissioned a working group to explore updating CIfA’s environmental policy and provide good practice case studies from the profession to help encourage wider recognition of the need for change.
Peter Hinton, CIfA Chief Executive, said
‘Our profession has a responsibility like any other to ensuring we are as sustainable as possible. We must, of course, examine the profession’s carbon footprint and sharing good practice. But we can also use archaeological evidence to shine a unique spotlight on climate change by looking at how human populations have been impacted by climate change in the past. I look forward to learning from and sharing with colleagues across the globe through the Climate Heritage Network’.
You can read the Climate Heritage Network press release here.
Notes for editors
The Climate Heritage Network is a voluntary, mutual support network of local and city, state/provincial and regional, Indigenous Peoples’, and national arts, culture and heritage governmental and quasi-governmental boards, offices, ministries and site management agencies as well as NGOs, universities, businesses and other organizations committed to aiding their communities in tackling climate change and achieving the ambitions of the Paris Agreement. Entities may join at http://climateheritage.org/join/.
The Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (CIfA) is the leading professional body representing archaeologists working in the UK and overseas. It promotes high professional standards and strong ethics in archaeological practice, to maximise the benefits that archaeologists bring to society.
It regulates, supports and improves the profession, and the public value derived from it, by
- setting standards for individual and organisational ability based on technical and ethical competence, for archaeological products, and for learning opportunities
- accrediting and endorsing people and activities that meet those standards
- defining and promoting pathways through a career structure
- encouraging and recognising good practice, innovation and collaboration
- investigating and where necessary imposing sanctions on individuals and organisations alleged to have acted unprofessionally
- acting alone or with others, advocating to governments, agencies and policy makers to introduce reforms to legislation, policy, guidance and practice that would secure greater public benefit from archaeology
Accredited CIfA professionals have demonstrated technical and ethical competence in archaeology by means of an examined portfolio of work in whichever areas of the diverse discipline of archaeology in which they work. They have agreed to comply with the CIfA Code of conduct and CIfA Standards and guidance wherever they work in the world. The Code of conduct and Standards and guidance identify outcomes and processes expected of many types of archaeological work. CIfA professionals act impartially and are accountable under professional conduct procedures. Registered Organisations of CIfA are led by senior accredited professionals and have formally undertaken to comply with the Code and Standards; they are assessed for skills, performance, compliance, and quality management procedures via a written application and an inspection by peers.
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