Cultural heritage is often perceived as a cost to be borne rather than an investment that generates value: it entails burdensome maintenance and relies on public funds increasingly contested by competing priorities—such as healthcare, defense, and the energy transition—while its economic return, though real, is difficult to measure with the same immediacy as in other sectors. Added to this is a growing and often underestimated threat: climate change, which exposes historic sites, museums, and cultural landscapes to tangible risks of degradation, flooding, and erosion, at a time when resources for prevention remain woefully inadequate.
The panel will consider whether investing in cultural heritage remains a sustainable priority or risks becoming a luxury that contemporary societies can no longer afford. Discussion will focus on the actual economic and employment value generated by heritage; the need for new funding models involving public-private partnerships and strategic philanthropy; and the opportunities offered by technologies such as 3D digitization and artificial intelligence for preventive conservation and public engagement. The session will also address the deeper dimension of the issue: cultural heritage is not merely an economic asset but a source of social cohesion and collective identity—the loss of which entails costs that no balance sheet can truly quantify.
The event will offer the audience an opportunity to reflect on how to transform heritage preservation from a perceived burden into a strategic asset for the future—particularly in a country like Italy, which bears a globally unique responsibility for this heritage.