About Us
Our research focuses on cultural heritage safeguard policies adopted by UN agencies and the private sector as they relate to development in the global context. At face value, these policies have the hallmarks of good practice and serve to protect cultural heritage while at the same time reducing reputational and financial risk exposure for both lenders and project proponents. Our research has demonstrated that current safeguard policies do not always reflect good international practice and there is a need to critically examine both their content and implementation to ensure project evaluations meet the expectations of both heritage professionals and descendent communities. Our work offers suggestions to improve existing policies and we support the development of a new cultural heritage safeguards framework specifically for private sector project proponents. We also identify a need to rate the existing cultural heritage safeguard policies of individual companies. Further details on these two initiatives are provided below.
Cultural Heritage Assessment Tool
Mason and Martindale (2023) review and provide suggestions to improve the dominant cultural heritage safeguard policy in use by lenders and development proponents. Further, we support the creation of a new cultural heritage safeguards framework specifically for private sector project proponents. We call this framework the Cultural Heritage Assessment Tool (CHAT). CHAT offers measurable indicators to ensure legal obligations are met, that qualified experts complete cultural heritage assessments, that studies have high technical quality and involve descendent and local communities in a meaningful way.
CHAT evaluates individual project performance against a framework comprised of four policy dimensions and more than 75 heritage indicators. We are currently transforming CHAT into a fully functional tool, and we welcome queries from interested research collaborators for each of the dimensions (legal compliance, technical expertise, technical quality, and community engagement) to help us make the open-source tool available to potential users on an expedited basis. Primary research is complete, and the material is currently being compiled for publication. Inquiries are welcome.
Heritage Sustainability Index
Related to our work on CHAT, is the Heritage Sustainability Index (HSI), a tool that draws on a wide suite of sectoral and cross-sectoral indicators and sub-indictors to rate company actions that protect cultural heritage and promote sustainable development. This index builds on the work of Mason and Ying (2020) and independently evaluates performance among industry peers with the goal of strengthening cultural heritage safeguards and reducing reputational and financial risk exposure.
A beta test of this framework has been completed, drawing from the dataset used by Mason and Ying (2020) which examined the place of cultural heritage in the lending practices of the world’s 25 largest private sector banks (Figures 1 and 2). The next generation HSI will rely on more nuanced indictors and sub-indicators and will offer greater differentiation and spread among the data points.
Figure 1 – Scatterplot of HSI beta dataset. The red data point illustrates how companies can be singled out for comparison against industry peers or evaluated by prospective lenders.
Figure 2 – Boxplot of HSI beta dataset showing the spread of index scores among industry peers. Specific data points (companies) can be singled out to determine which quartile they fall within.
Contact Information / Further Information
Andrew Martindale, Professor (Andrew.Martindale@ubc.ca)
Andrew Mason, Sessional Instructor & Honorary Research Associate (Andrew.Mason@ubc.ca)
Further Reading
- Mason AR, Martindale A. Rethinking Cultural Heritage in the International Finance Corporation Performance Standards. Advances in Archaeological Practice. 2023;11(4):388-401. https://doi.org/10.1017/aap.2023.26
- Mason AR, Ying M. Evaluating Standards for Private-Sector Financial Institutions and the Management of Cultural Heritage. Advances in Archaeological Practice. 2020;8(1):1-14. doi:10.1017/aap.2019.44
- Mason AR. Too Old to Fail: Banking on Cultural Heritage. Cambridge Core Blog. 2020. link
