Getty Holds Convening in Rome Focused on the Impact of Climate Change on Archaeological Heritage

Climate change poses a catastrophic threat to the world’s archaeological heritage, exacerbating typical causes of damage and loss to the archaeological record, such as unnecessary excavations, insufficient conservation, uncontained development, exposure to weather, and uncontrolled tourism.

There remains a divide between the climate science data and those working on archaeological sites who need that data to make the best decisions necessary for the long-term sustainability of shared heritage.

As we learn more about impact of climate change on archaeological sites, appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures remain less developed. In response, the Getty Conservation Institute convened a group of climate change scientists and heritage practitioners to determine the questions and priorities facing the field, and how the can Getty leverage its decades of expertise in the conservation and management of archaeological sites to address these problems.

Getty experts knew it would be important to cement the relationship between the subject matter of the convening and Getty’s practices. At the very start of the planning, the GCI organizers set up a series of meetings with Getty’s Head of Sustainability, Camille Kirk, to determine what questions should be asked from the beginning to develop and implement a meeting that exemplifies Getty’s priority on sustainability. From those meetings, the GCI team created an Environmental Responsibility Statement that addressed, in a transparent way, the decisions made about everything from the materials chosen to distribute and printing, to participant travel and food selection. Getty staff will learn from this model in planning future events.