SDG 11
Sustainable cities and communities

SDG 13
Climate action

Think of the Sustainable Development Goals as missions your organisation wants to achieve. Each SDG includes targets (specific objectives) and each target has indicators that measure progress.

Example:
A traditional music festival aims to reduce single-use plastic. It aligns with:

• SDG 12: responsible consumption and production
• Target 12.5: substantially reduce waste generation
• Indicator 12.5.1: national recycling rate, tons of material recycled

Through the connection of the local efforts to the global frameworks, the festival can demonstrate measurable sustainability impact.

A family-run restaurant offering local cuisine and traditional dance evenings decided to measure its sustainability impact using 2030 Indicators or SDGs.

They identified impact as:

• Environmental: reduced food waste and plastic use (SDG 12).
• Social: created paid roles for young folk dancers (SDG 8).
• Cultural: promoted intergenerational transmission of recipes and music (SDG 4).

Within a year, the venue cut waste by 40%, added a youth performance training scheme and became a model for sustainable cultural tourism in its region.

Most cultural organisations already act on strong values, yet few can translate those values into evidence. Your goal is to move from intuition to measurement, so your sustainability story becomes credible, traceable and comparable.

The key is to treat values as starting points for metrics, not as abstract statements. Every cultural activity can demonstrate measurable impact across four dimensions:

• Safeguarding knowledge: keeping traditions alive across generations.
• Fostering inclusion: engaging under-represented groups.
• Reducing impact: lowering resource use in events and exhibitions.
• Strengthening identity: giving visibility to local heritage.

Value --> safeguarding traditional music.
Outcome --> more young people learning and performing it within the community.

Quantitative KPIs

Number of new apprentices trained per year.
% of local materials used in stage sets.

Qualitative KPIs

Community perception of inclusiveness in cultural events.
Level of satisfaction among visitors regarding learning opportunities.

Adopt the SMART approach:

Specific: clearly defined (e.g. “train 10 youth artists”).
Measurable: based on actual data, not perceptions.
Achievable: realistic for your size and budget.
Relevant: aligned with mission and SDGs.
Time-bound: within a set period (e.g. one festival cycle or year).

A small museum is a community space dedicated to preserving local oral traditions and storytelling.
It wanted to prove that cultural transmission also supports sustainability and not just heritage preservation.
It began from its core values: inclusion, education and low-impact management. Then it translated them into measurable KPIs:

• Value: intergenerational storytelling --> KPI: number of youth storytellers trained per year (nr SDG)
• Value: cultural inclusion -->  KPI: % of participants from under-represented groups in workshops (nr SDG)
• Value: environmental respect --> KPI: energy use per event (nr SDG) 

After one year, the museum saw a X% rise in youth participation and reduced energy use by switching to LED lighting. Their annual report now links each action to SDGs indicators, showing that even small museums can turn values into data-driven impact.

A network of small regional festivals decided to track their sustainability performance together.
They created a shared spreadsheet (one tab per festival) to record common KPIs such as:

• energy use per event (SDG 12.2)
• % of local food suppliers (SDG 8.9)
• audience diversity by age and gender (SDG 10.2)

Each festival assigned a local coordinator who updated data after every edition.
Once a year, the network compiled all results into a short Sustainability Snapshot using the UN framework.
This simple system helped them reduce waste, attract green sponsors and strengthen cooperation across communities proving that monitoring can be easy but transformative.

In the cultural and tourism sectors, certifications are more than labels. They are frameworks of accountability that prove alignment with Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) values. They help you assess, improve and communicate your sustainability performance, while earning communities’ trust.

According to the UN 2030 Agenda, adopting sustainability standards allows your kind of organisation to contribute directly to global goals.

Before applying for a sustainability certification, cultural heritage organisations need to understand where they stand compared to the required standards. This process, known as Gap Analysis, helps identify what is already in place and what needs to be improved to meet certification criteria such as EMAS, EU Ecolabel or ISO 14001.
 

An association manages a network of walking trails connecting small cultural villages. After years of promoting local heritage informally, the team decided to pursue EU Ecolabel certification to strengthen its environmental credibility. They began with a Gap Analysis comparing their current practices to EU Ecolabel criteria:

• Water & waste management -->   partial compliance
• Energy use monitoring -->   not yet tracked
• Visitor education -->   strong community engagement

With support from a regional EMAS adviser, they built an Action Plan: they install refill stations at all trail rest points and create a shared energy logbook for partner hostels (all according to specific SDGs). They also publish a short annual sustainability statement following UNESCO Culture Indicators.

Within one year, the network reduced single-use plastics and produced its first public report (a simple, transparent document that turned everyday actions into measurable progress toward certification).

• Is this claim backed by data or certification?
• Can it be verified by an external party?
• Which SDG indicator does it relate to?

Under the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD):
Large companies are legally required to publish a sustainability report following the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS).
Smaller organisations are not required yet, but:
- they may become required in the future, and
- they often work with larger organisations that already have this obligation.

For this reason, it is helpful for smaller cultural organisations to start thinking in terms of sustainability reporting, collecting basic data and improving transparency. This prepares you for future rules and makes collaboration easier.
 

ESRS are the EU framework that explains: 

• what information organisations must report about sustainability
• how to organise the sustainability report
• which indicators to use for impacts, risks and opportunities
• the double materiality approach, meaning how the organisation impacts people and the environment  and how sustainability issues affect the organisation.

The ESRS create a common European language for sustainability reporting and help organisations communicate clearly and transparently.

A small cultural centre exhibits local musical instruments and, for years, shared sustainability messages informally. Now it wants to publish its first Sustainability Report following the ESRS.
 

Scenario:
You are part of the team preparing the report. The centre already has some data (energy use, educational programmes and visitor diversity) but no structured narrative.
 

1. Environmental (energy, waste, acoustics impact)
2. Social (accessibility, inclusion, cultural education)
3. Governance (transparency, community participation)

Mark which of these align with:

• ESRS E1: Climate change
• ESRS S3: Affected communities
• ESRS G1: Business conduct
   

• Does your paragraph show both impact materiality (benefits for people and heritage) and financial materiality (better resource use)?
• What one additional metric could make your story more credible next year?