18 C O N T E X T 1 5 0 : J U L Y 2 0 1 7 Sean McEntee, who graduated from the University of Leicester MA in urban conservation in 2016, is undertaking internships with Lambeth Council’s conservation and urban design team and JLL’s heritage planning and development team. Blossom Street warehouses elevation. Building dates: 1 1886; 2 around late 19th century; 3 1887. unique responses to social and economic issues to be recognised. The lack of scope for conservation-led schemes to achieve highly against sustainability frameworks, coupled with the tendency of these frameworks to ‘only deal with “high-end” developments’,4 may promote a generic approach to sustainable development that limits alternative responses in favour of homogenised development, and forces a position where conservation practice could be seen as being at odds to sustainable practice. Looking beyond ratings frameworks, it is evident that the focus of scholarship, discourse and practice in sustainability is focused on environmental issues, and by comparison the social, cultural and economic aspects of the triple bottom line are under-developed.This bias presents a clear opportunity for the heritage sector to contribute to policy and practice of the sustainable development sector by sharing the expertise generated within their own field of scholarship and practice in effecting positive outcomes for community identity and place value which flow from conservation projects, and the growing body of knowledge on economic impacts associated with conservation programmes. Such a contribution would allow the heritage sector to inform and influence the manner in which sustainable development addresses historic environments, rather than adopting a reactive stance to implications of sustainable development affecting heritage assets. While some in the conservation sector may view an increasing focus on sustainability issues in the discourse and practice of conservation as straying from the core tasks of ‘restoration, rehabilitation, maintenance and interpretation’,5 others will see the opportunity to broaden the perception of built heritage from a specialism concerned with architectural and historic interest to a more ‘coordinated mainstream activity’6 representative of social gains and inclusivity. Although there is an evident alignment between the social, cultural and economic agendas for sustainability and benefits of conservation-led projects, purposefully including environmental concerns and operational performance of historic buildings as a strategic aim would enhance the perception of conservation as a holistically sustainable pursuit. The impression of environmentally sustainable outcomes often relates foremost to ‘eco-technical’ solutions in buildings, which in a heritage context can involve invasive work and loss of material integrity. However, as measurable data for embodied energy become more reliable, the inherent benefit of fabric retention becomes more pronounced.7 Better awareness of the inherent benefits of historic buildings and embodied energy, and the cumulative gains to be had from non-invasive measures in the context of operational energy, could allow a shift to the heritage sector advocating sustainable benefits rather than so often being caught on the back foot countering arguments of energy performance originating from the development industry. Sustainable development sets an admirable agenda for progressing environmental, social, cultural and economic issues, and the unified consideration for these elements in the built environment is certainly a positive thing. Balancing the multiplicity of concerns among the triple bottom line is still an ambitious goal, and no doubt it will still be some time before singular concerns for environmental agendas or energy performance are not misconstrued as constituting the core, or even the entirety, of sustainable development. At this time of emerging understanding and growing consensus, it is therefore crucial that the conservation sector seeks to contribute to discourse on delivering positive social, cultural and economic outcomes, and demonstrating how these objectives are routinely realised through programmes of heritage conservation. References 4 Sullivan, Ridin and Buchanan, Neighbourhood Sustainability Frameworks 5 Barthel-Bouchier, Cultural Heritage 6 Rodwell, Conservation and Sustainability 7 StephenWard (2012) ‘Breathing life into the corpse: upcycling through adaptive reuse’, in Steffen Lehmann and Robert Crocker (eds), Designing for ZeroWaste: consumption, technologies and the built environment, Routledge
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