Evaluation criteria for a circular adaptive reuse of cultural heritage

This article aims to develop a structured reasoning and a first proposal of evaluation criteria to assess the impacts of cultural heritage adaptive reuse projects in the perspective of the circular economy model. Adaptive reuse of cultural heritage can be key in the implementation of circular economy and circular city/territory models. The article explores and clarifies why and how cultural heritage adaptive reuse is key to implement a circular economy in cities and regions, stressing the “multidimensional productivity” of heritage reuse and its contribution to the achievement of a “human sustainable development”. The article addresses first the theoretical aspects comparing and discussing the literature on circular economy and its applications, while proposing a first set of evaluation criteria able to express what can be interpreted/chosen as relevant in this context.