The UN Agenda 2030 programme and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals constitute a global, comprehensive package heading for a holistic sustainability transformation. However, the global scale makes it clear that the SDGs are not achievable by anyone alone, nor is it expected. Still, the goals can be approached both on a large and small scale.

At the end of 2022, through collaboration with LIVIND project partners, support was announced for various local-level actors for pilot projects.  The allocated amounts  were rather modest varying from 1000 euros to 5400 euros, but a total of 20 experiments were supported, spread across all countries and areas involved in the project.

Considering each separately, the pilots may appear as individual, relatively small projects and initiatives, but together the twenty small projects involved dozens of organisers and hundreds, even thousands of participants in various workshops, events, and interventions, where sustainability issues related to living heritage gained visibility and raised discussion through practical action forms that were relatively easy to participate in.

In this way, the pilot projects showed that matters of global scale can be addressed at the local level and as matters that are locally relevant.

Throughout the LIVIND project it has been noted that for many bearers of living heritage, the sustainability approach does not appear as anything new. Indeed, while raising awareness and public discussion about new solutions for more sustainable and ecological action is essential, it is also important to examine and highlight existing practices and exemplify how they already contribute to a sustainability mindset.

Still, critical examination of living heritage practices  can help shape them towards sustainability. This could involve improving the ecological aspects of a traditional event (such as reducing plastic usage or energy consumption) or enhancing social sustainability by addressing gender equality or issues of creating safe spaces.

It is certainly possible to recognize that a certain practice of living heritage could be made more sustainable in various ways, benefiting the environment, community equality, economic management, and the continuity of tradition itself. However, even in sustainability efforts, it is important to consider sustainability and ask, for example, what are the limits of resources of a given community in a given time? Not everything needs to be fixed at once; sustainability can also be approached gradually.

Do you have questions about the project? Drop us a line and we happily tell more! Also, if you know another interesting project, an initiative, or a website about living cultural heritage and sustainability, please, let us know!