CERCMA Cultural Environment as Resource

This publication is a result of the project CERCMA - Cultural Environment as Resource in Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation. CERCMA joined cultural heritage administrations of Nordic countries, accompanied with universities of Aalto, Turku, Tampere and Lund, Finnish Meteorological Institute, The Institute of Archaeology Iceland, Gaia Arkitekter Oslo, Alvar AaltoFoundation, Realdania and Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research. CERCMA focused on the positive influence of cultural environment protection forclimate change mitigation and adaptation. The project dealed with building conservation, planning of built heritage areas and management of cultural landscape. The mainquestions were,how heritage solutions may help in adaptation to climate change and future risks; how traditional planning density and scale as well as the preserving of historic green areas may contribute to sustainable community planning; and how existingbuildings can be resources in climate change mitigation. These topics were discussed in a Nordic expert meeting in Helsinki, at March 2014, assessing the friction points between cultural environment protection and mitigation and adaptation measures and assessing eventual or imminent damage to cultural environments by climate policies as well as the effectivity of mitigation involving cultural environments. The results are disseminated in this project report.The project has primarily been financed by the Nordic Council of Ministers through the Terrestrial Ecosystem Group (TEG). Project received additional funding from the Ministry of the Environment Finland, the National Bureau of Antiquities Finland, Finnish Meteorological Institute, University of Turku, The Directorate for Cultural Heritage in Norway and The Swedish National Heritage Board.