World Heritage and Renewable Energy

UNESCO Guidance on Wind and Solar Energy Projects in a World Heritage Context

The World Heritage and Renewable Energy – Guidance on Wind and Solar Energy Projects in a World Heritage Context provides practical advice for States Parties, Site managers/coordinators, planners, developers and other actors on how to align the protection of World Heritage Sites/Properties with renewable energy development, particularly wind and solar energy projects. As countries transition to low-carbon energy systems, it is essential to ensure that wind and solar energy projects are planned and implemented in ways that safeguard the Outstanding Universal Value of World Heritage Sites. Impact assessment is a critical tool in this process – it enables the early identification of potential impacts, promotes informed decision-making and helps to balance climate goals with heritage conservation obligations.

This introduction addresses the need for the global transition from non-renewable energy to renewable energy sources and how this process may lead to consequences for World Heritage.

The core of this Guidance comprises four main parts.

1. Understanding World Heritage explains the core concepts of the World Heritage Convention (1972), primarily for a non-expert audience.
2. Understanding Renewable Energy provides essential information related to renewable energy infrastructure and electrical transmission, especially for heritage experts and stakeholders.
3. Protecting World Heritage outlines the most important protection and management tools, which may guarantee the long-term preservation of World Heritage properties for future generations, and describes possible proactive actions for site managers and stakeholders.
4. Impact Assessment describes the principles and considerations for conducting impact assessments in a World Heritage context.

Impact assessment aims to ensure that the potential negative and positive impacts of a planned or proposed renewable energy project are well understood, both by the developers throughout the planning process and by the decision-makers in the permitting process, and can be mitigated or enhanced, or alternatives identified. This is also a requirement under the World Heritage Convention. The impact assessment process should be used to understand the potential impact of a renewable energy project before any commitments are made, ensuring also that its steps and results are used to improve the planning and design of renewable energy projects and other developments.

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Published in 2025 by UNESCO, ICCROM, ICOMOS and IUCN.