Led by Herrmann, the project’s initial scope comprises 10 heritage sites around the world, many of which are a major source of economic and cultural resilience for communities. They consist of Petra in Jordan, the rice terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras, Angkor Archaeological Park, Cambodia, border fields in the USA and Mexico, the historical mosque city of Bagerhat in Bangladesh, Nan Madol in Micronesia, Levuka in Fiji, Koutammakou in the land of the Batammariba, Togo and Benin in West Africa, Sceilg Mhichíl in Ireland, and Port, Fortress, and Group of Monuments in Cartagena, Columbia.

There is a different threat profile — ranging from flooding to drought, extreme rainfall, heatwaves, rising sea levels, and changing seasonality — and each was selected for its existing community capacity showing commitment to conservation, but limited climate literacy.

In an interview with the media on the sidelines of the Cambodia Angkor Wat International Half Marathon, Tom Crohan, Manulife’s Global Head of Community Investment, said the project aligns with Manulife’s global Impact Agenda released in 2022.

“We have a long history as a company that focuses on life, health, protection and managing and assessing risk, all of which are directly related to climate change. This is an extension of our commitment to climate action and our Impact Agenda, and we are investing in an organisation whose mission and values align with ours,” said Crohan.

Most importantly, the initiative is community-led and owned, said Herrmann. “Bringing together community champions and site custodians and combining their local and global expertise allows us to envision what these places could look like in 2072, 50 years from now. It also allows us to make better choices today, and adapt sites to those future climate events.”

Team members are combining projections from global climate models with local weather data to better understand climate threats for the sites and make the information more accessible to locals. As a result, community leaders and site managers will be able to answer critical questions about which climate impacts they should prepare for and when they are likely to occur.

“We have global climate models that tell us what the world would look like at 1.5 to 2 degrees warmer, but it’s hard to create local solutions as the data is too big. It tells a global story instead of a local story, so we’re looking to downscale it,” explained Herrmann.

As we face unprecedented man-made climate change, we can listen to our past and adapt it for the future.

Site custodians and local leaders will be trained in climate literacy — ranging from understanding climate models and climate change impacts to climate vulnerability assessment, and various adaptation approaches, such as green nature-based and grey solutions, or “hard-armoring” through technological or infrastructural innovations.

It will also include a community values mapping exercise to understand and save what is most important to the community, such as the spiritual value of the site or food security.

Beset by poverty and low adaptive capacity, Cambodia, for instance, has been listed as one of the most climate vulnerable countries. With longer droughts, short rainy seasons and occasional flash floods, rainfall patterns have shifted, negatively impacting rice farming, the country’s lifeblood. The Angkor site is also susceptible to drought, rain, and changing groundwater levels, but the aim is to get more solutions to these main threats as the project is underway, said Herrmann.

Participants will first visit the rice terraces in the Philippines and Petra in Jordan to learn how to assess climate vulnerability. They will then run the assessments on their individual sites. Following that, local communities will design climate adaptation plans together. A final goal of the project is to inspire “millions more” about the sites through storytelling and education.

The pilot phase began in November in the Philippines and is expected to conclude by the end of 2023, with implementation handled by the local site custodians and leaders.

In addition, the project aims to create connections that will last. “For example, someone in the Philippines can call their friend in Bangladesh who attended the same climate literacy class and ask, ‘Hey, what would you do when faced with a flood?’ Together, they can figure out how to implement that climate adaptation plan,” said Herrmann.

“Frequently, we see these sites as removed from who we are, as if we could never have the same lived experience as someone from a thousand years ago. However, we are all connected, and we share the environments and environmental changes. As we face unprecedented man-made climate change, we can listen to our past and adapt it for the future.”

With 10 sites in the pipeline, the goal is to scale this model to dozens more sites and communities worldwide.

“We expect a lot of value creation, not just from the 10 sites, but through social interaction, social capital building, and the potential ripple effect across the globe,” said Manulife’s Crohan.

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