**3. Results**

The data on carbon footprints, climate narratives, sustainability practices, and climate change impacts were imported into ArcGIS Online, a free, open-source, cloud-based mapping tool. The ArcGIS StoryMaps platform was then used to combine the text, images of sites, and interactive maps to create a publicly-accessible platform to present the results of the analysis, developed as a Climate Communication Recognition Scheme titled *Climate Footprints of Heritage Tourism* [41]. The StoryMap interface allows for the creation of interactive web-based platforms built around the presentation of spatial information through maps. By linking narrative text with photographs and maps of spatial relationships, StoryMaps are a rich, visually compelling way to present information that engages the reader and facilitates dissemination [57,58]. ArcGIS StoryMaps are increasingly being used across fields to communicate information, including in education, public health, museum studies, and geology [59–62].

The StoryMap developed in this project presents the data collected for each of the subgroups in two overarching themes: Understanding Your Impact and Telling the Story:


**Figure 3.** Webpage screenshot of Understanding Your Impact theme, with example of the site of the Borobudur Temple Compounds, in the StoryMap *Climate Footprints of Heritage Tourism* [41].

**Figure 4.** Webpage screenshot of Telling the Story theme in the StoryMap *Climate Footprints of Heritage Tourism* [41].

### **4. Discussion: Climate Communication Recognition Schemes as a Transnational Governance Tool**

This study represents a pilot approach for developing a public-facing instrument that uses heritage sites to communicate various facets of climate change, including information relevant for mitigation and adaptation responses. Specifically, we developed the instrument as a CCRS to provide a tool for transnational governance. CCRS is an elaboration on the concept of ecolabels, but with two primary distinctions: a CCRS is specifically oriented towards climate concerns and captures a more holistic portrait, for example of the entanglements between heritage resources and climate change, than the strictly quantitative measures typically employed and available in ecolabels. We consider that the development of ecolabels and CCRS will strengthen the knowledge base for sustainable site managemen<sup>t</sup> and consumer decision-making in the face of global climate change; most importantly, such instruments represent mechanisms for transnational governance of climate issues, in the context of the deficits and dysfunction in the international governance of climate change responses.

Increasingly issues or policy problems—like global climate change—that impact heritage resources and their managemen<sup>t</sup> extend beyond state jurisdictions. Furthermore, they are poorly addressed or captured by the traditional international system of state-to-state treaties and treaty-based intergovernmental organizations, for example by UNESCO World Heritage and its system of conventions, recommendations, and associated advising bodies. International organizations like UNESCO are subject to the grindingly slow machinery of national and international governance, which have proven inadequate to address the rising environmental and social challenges of climate change. Additionally, some of the deficits in the ability of UNESCO heritage frameworks to respond in a meaningful way to climate change are baked into UNESCO's conventions. International agreements like the UNESCO conventions related to heritage (e.g., the 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage and the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage) make no explicit reference to climate change, though the World Heritage Convention does address threats to heritage sites presented by extreme weather [64]. Indeed, though scholars and climate activists have explored the extent to which the World Heritage Convention might be used to compel States Parties to take action on climate change [65,66], others reiterate that these conventions assert the rights of states to protect their own heritage sites, and do not enforce obligations to mitigate climate change [67]. Despite the shortcomings of UNESCO World Heritage as an international governmental body, we do find value in the branding function—as a brand signifying global conservation—that UNESCO World Heritage has come to take on, especially in the shift towards development models of heritage management. This branding function may be usefully developed as a transnational governance tool: as an ecolabel or, in this case, the development and refinement of an ecolabel as a CCRS.

Scholars and actors in climate governance are turning to transnational governance as one of the most promising arenas for climate action [68–70]. Given the limitations of the international system for cross-border governance and interstate cooperation, developing transnational governance tools (like ecolabels) o ffers the opportunity for institutional innovations that better fit heritage managemen<sup>t</sup> practices to the challenges of global climate change. The search for institutional innovations in climate governance is the rationale for this study to develop a CCRS for WHS. More broadly, heritage resources and heritage practices increasingly cross national borders, underscoring the need for the further development of heritage managemen<sup>t</sup> paradigms within transnational frameworks [39,71].

It is important to understand that, across various sectors and contexts, transnational governance has assumed similar functions as the state and the international system, such as rule-making, implementation, monitoring, enforcement, and service provision. However, transnational governance is di fferent from state governments and international system on account of having shed the administrative and institutional trappings of these governmental bodies. This move from the state/international to transnational is perhaps best understood as a shift from "governments" to "governance." This shift has been ongoing for some time now, as structural adjustments to governmen<sup>t</sup> under neoliberal reforms have encouraged the decentralization of state bureaucracies and withdrawal of the state from social provisioning.

In general, transnational governance is characterized by several key trends: (1) merging of domestic and international politics; (2) increasing involvement of non-state actors (e.g., individuals, firms, corporations, and NGOs) in global politics, in providing technical expertise, monitoring, lobbying, or enforcement; (3) private governance, e.g., the involvement of private foundations in global standards, such as the Gates Foundation in global health; and (4) new methods for eliciting compliance with transborder standards, such as 'naming and shaming,' capacity building, persuasion, transparency, and dissemination of best practices [72] (pp. 6–12). Overall, governance mechanisms for organizing action and eliciting compliance—e.g., through the private sphere, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and corporate social responsibility (CSR)—are being sought beyond the international system.

Ecolabels fit squarely within the above trends, as they are typically developed by non-state actors, represent a form of private governance, and provide a tool for eliciting compliance. Ecolabeling uses a certification process to assign labels to consumer goods, e.g., organic and fair trade certification of food, for communicating the sustainability of a product [73–75]. Ecolabels extend to tourism; for example 30% (128 of 430) of the ecolabels listed in the 2014 Ecolabel Index apply to the tourism industry [74]. In the context of the tourism industry, these schemes often carry a strong quantifiable and ecological focus. However, e fforts to incorporate cultural, social, and economic aspects of a tourist destination into these schemes are underway and are often reflected in a more holistic approach to certification processes known as an "environmental product information scheme" (EPIS) that aim to provide more holistic ecological information on products and services [75–78]. The emergence of voluntary transnational governance tools for encouraging and recognizing environmental sustainability has resulted in a variety of instruments that can collectively be called EPIS. These schemes include mechanisms such as ecolabels, stewardship certificates, green trademarks, rankings and ratings, codes of conduct, and standards for reports and declarations, among others [79,80]. Ecolabels and EPIS are employed to communicate information to consumers, such as quality and sustainability, and reward and promote goods and services that are environmentally superior in some respect [75]. They provide consumers with the opportunity to "vote with their wallet" in a manner of environmental policymaking that extends beyond national governments and borders.

The current study is situated within this literature and, as described above, aims to develop an environmental product information scheme for communicating climate change at WHS, which we

have called a "climate communication recognition scheme" (CCRS). This elaboration from an ecolabel to a more holistic capturing of the various facets of climate change knowledge and responses immanent in heritage sites is reflected in our choices in designing the CCRS. In addition to the quantitative measures that typically characterize ecolabels, given in this case by carbon footprint analysis, we have also chosen to portray other facets of climate change at heritage sites, such as their narrative potential for communicating the histories of anthropogenic climate change, the sustainability practices being undertaken at heritage sites, and the impacts of climate change to heritage resources. We consider this approach a more accurate capturing of the climate communication potential of heritage sites, not only pursuing carbon managemen<sup>t</sup> tools like carbon footprint analysis, but also triangulated with social justice and sustainability issues attendant with heritage sites and global climate change (for example, exacerbating existing social and economic inequalities, the fundamental and paradoxical inequalities of climate change between who contributes and who su ffers, and the impacts of climate change for increasing migration, displacement, conflict, and food insecurity). WHS are iconic institutions representing the cultural riches and creative solutions that societies around the world have produced in relationship to their environment, so it is important that an ecolabel for WHS is situated within a holistic context of social, economic, and environmental sustainability and attentive to the social justice dimensions of global climate change.

One of the limitations of this study is the time-intensive nature of collecting information for each of the WHS included in the StoryMap. Given the sheer number of sites on the World Heritage List, expanding the approach taken here to the entire list would require significant time investment and is probably unrealistic. Plus, taking into account that new sites are inscribed to the World Heritage List each year, we sugges<sup>t</sup> that any CCRS for WHS should be considered a "living" and provisional labeling tool rather than an exhaustive one. Therefore, future development of the CCRS beyond our pilot-study will need to set evaluative rubrics for which WHS should be prioritized over others for inclusion in the CCRS. The calculation of carbon footprints of travel to the sites is also particularly time-intensive, as it requires collecting considerable amounts of data from various online sources. A further limitation of the carbon footprint calculations, in addition to those discussed in the methods section above, is that these footprints were calculated under the assumption that the tourist was traveling only to the site in question. Generally, heritage tourism is part of a tourism circuit, in which visitors to a country travel to several locations on one trip [81].

Following this pilot-study, we plan to continue developing and refining the CCRS for eventual dissemination amongs<sup>t</sup> heritage managers and specialists as well as the general public. In addition to increasing the number of sites represented in the CCRS, we also intend to continue building out the narrative descriptions for each site, especially to underscore the holistic nexus of climate impacts, adaptive capacity, carbon managemen<sup>t</sup> and other mitigatory actions, and climate communication opportunities that exist, or have the potential to exist, at every site. A holistic approach to climate change in site management, heritage management, and public engagemen<sup>t</sup> with heritage sites will offer better opportunities and strengthen resilience for responding to the challenges of climate change. Furthermore, our work with the CCRS mirrors broader developments in formalizing the inclusion of climate considerations in heritage management, and though these trends are still primarily focused on impacts and adaptation, such analyses and instruments as provided here may be of interest in strengthening and institutionalizing climate change responses within heritage site managemen<sup>t</sup> and heritage managemen<sup>t</sup> more broadly.

Overall, we o ffer this study as an example of the development of transnational governance tools in heritage managemen<sup>t</sup> for addressing climate change, and we recommend further research and initiatives in this direction. As we develop in this study, an ecolabeling scheme for WHS that communicates the holistic facets of climate change could influence consumer/tourist choices and site managemen<sup>t</sup> for a well-known "brand" of tourism sites that trades on global awareness and global conservation. We urge further development of transnational tools for heritage managemen<sup>t</sup> in order to meet the climate crisis. The ine ffectiveness of climate action within the international system behooves

stakeholders of heritage resources to pursue sustainable development and sustainable tourism via low-carbon economic growth and to innovate and incorporate transnational tools for responding to climate change, which will serve to "fill in the gaps" or provide supportive sca ffolding to international and national heritage policies and practices.

**Author Contributions:** All authors helped in methodology, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, and developing the manuscript. Conceptualization, funding acquisition, and supervision, K.L.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by the University of Maryland ADVANCE Program for Inclusive Excellence and the University of Maryland Department of Anthropology.

**Acknowledgments:** We wish to thank Klaus Hubacek for his advice during the conceptualization of this project, and Paul Shackel and Barnet Pavão-Zuckerman for their feedback on the development of the StoryMap. This paper benefitted from the insightful recommendations of five anonymous reviewers, and we thank them for their time and attention. We are also grateful for website support from the University of Maryland Department of Anthropology for the website http://www.heritageofclimate.com.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
