Integrating Sustainable Development into Heritage Conservation: An Agenda for Due Diligence by the Business Community

The international community has embraced the concept of sustainable development since the adoption of the World Heritage Convention in 1972. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has used the platform of the World Heritage Convention (the Convention) together with its intergovernmental framework of the World Heritage Committee (WHC) to seek the protection and conservation of the natural and cultural heritage in crucial contribution to the sustainable development movement. In other words, by identifying, protecting, conserving and transmitting to present and future generations irreplaceable cultural and natural heritage properties of outstanding universal value (OUV), the Convention contributes to the wellbeing of people and sustainability generally. It has been demonstrated that strengthening the dimensions of sustainable development brings benefits to heritage properties and support their OUV, if carefully integrated within their conservation and management systems. Therefore, taking natural and cultural heritage conservation as inextricably linked to, and an important contribution to sustainability, the responsibility for conservation and management of heritage has been placed squarely on state actors (States Parties to the Convention). Even though businesses have also caught on to the idea of sustainable development and companies use sustainability as a catch-all term to encompass a range of actions and activities relating to profitability, the environment and on a few occasions, heritage matters, little attention appears paid to these non-state private organizations as important stakeholders in the realization of the sustainability objectives in the heritage sector. This article highlights the extent to which the legal and regulatory framework of the World Heritage Convention appreciates the prowess of, and important contribution of the business community towards the realization of the Convention objectives. Where policy gaps are identified, the article makes recommendations for integrating improved business-friendly heritage conservation responsibilities within the policy and implementation guidelines towards a sustainable heritage protection and conservation framework