Explore a curated collection of articles, reports, academic papers, and case studies that delve into the intersection of WWII heritage and sustainability. Whether you’re looking for research insights, best practices, or real-world examples of sustainable remembrance tourism, this page offers the tools and knowledge to support informed action.
United Nations, Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its 17 SDGs was adopted at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York in September 2015.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries – developed and developing – in a global partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.
Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), November 2024.
The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC Attraction Standard) aims to establish global sustainability standards for attractions, guiding businesses such as theme parks, museums, and national parks toward sustainable practices. The GSTC Attraction Standard are the minimum that any attraction business should aspire to reach. They are organised around four main themes: effective sustainability planning, maximizing social and economic benefits for the local community, enhancing cultural heritage, and reducing negative impacts on the environment. They have applicability to the entire attraction industry. TheGSTC Attraction Standard has been developed for the attractions sector, including national parks and businesses like theme parks, museums, and other similar entities. The development process was a 14-month-long journey from September 2023 to November 2024, with support from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB).
Adopted by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) Annual General Assembly (Bangkok, Thailand) in November 2022.
Profound growth and disruption in global tourism, including cultural heritage tourism, has necessitated the revision of the ICOMOS International Charter for Cultural Tourism (1999). The process has resulted in this ICOMOS International Charter for Cultural Heritage Tourism (2021): Reinforcing cultural heritage protection and community resilience through responsible and sustainable tourism management (hereinafter “the Charter”), which complements and updates the previous one. In addition to recognising the intensified tourism use of cultural heritage places and destinations, this Charter addresses increasing concerns about the degradation of cultural heritage along with social, ethical, cultural, environmental and economic rights issues associated with tourism.
A series of questions connected to sustainability within your institution, to be discussed either in groups, as a workshop activity or reflected on individually. They help to assess what your institution has done so far in its efforts for sustainability, and highlight some potential next steps of what you can do to go further.
A simple worksheet to start tracking your site’s environmental footprint. This can be repeated monthly to track progress over time.
A checklist to be used during a walk-through of your site, enabling you to mark small changes that you can
implement now, as well as to note ideas for future upgrades.
This guide supports educators, tour guides, and programme developers in connecting historical education with contemporary global challenges. It includes discussion themes, activity ideas, and reflection questions aligned with UNESCO’s Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) framework.
A baseline tracker to help you monitor energy, waste, visitor travel, and paper and printing on a monthly basis, and to make a reflection on one small improvement per month.
How to turn a site walk into an action list with priorities, from quick wins to future improvements.
A practical checklist designed for museums, memorials & interpretation centres to help organise and carry out more eco-responsible events.
A checklist to use for each event to make it measurable, allowing you to check the eco-responsible aspects of your event before, during and after and so improve every time.
This guide provides prompts and ideas to help remembrance institutions design
participatory, reflective, and intergenerational education activities. Use or adapt these
materials for school visits, youth workshops, or commemorative events.
This template helps remembrance institutions measure and communicate the
social value they create for visitors, communities, schools, volunteers, and society.
A useful template to help you set out your own sustainability goals and monitor them accordingly. The foundations of a sustainability strategy in a simple template.
A slightly more complex version of the ‘simple’ template to help you set out your own sustainability goals and monitor them accordingly, with additional concepts and measurements. The foundations of a sustainability strategy in a simple template.
A complementary document to the Sustainability Action Plan templates detailing how to complete the template.
An individual or group activity to assess the accessibility of your site. Walk the site through the lens of on of the chosen six visitor profiles and document barriers across the
journey.
An individual or group activity to assess the inclusivity of your site through various questions and reflections.
An individual or group activity to look at who is your community – who does your organisation work with? Who could you work with? What are the benefits of these cooperations/potential cooperations?
An individual activity to help you understand who is in your procurement chain and where the value goes.
Do you have a study, report, case study, or article on sustainability in WWII heritage? Share your insights and help expand the conversation on responsible remembrance tourism. Submit your work and contribute to a growing resource for professionals in the sector.
