This thesis critically examines the impact of climate change on the heritage work of Historic England (HE) and the Riksantikvarieämbetet (‘Swedish National Heritage Board’ – RAÄ). The research is based on the understanding of climate change as a hyperobject (Morton, 2013), a term coined to describe the ways in which climate change does not only operate through its physical impact but also shifts social and material relations between humans, nonhumans and inanimate agents.

By applying an ethnographic methodology, this thesis critically reflects on the responses of HE and the RAÄ to the climate crisis by questioning what understandings of climate change and heritage inform these and, subsequently, what this means for climate action and the creation of (alternative) futures.

The research develops around three themes representing both organisations’ primary climate change engagements: adaptation, mitigation, and participation.

The thesis argues that the first two responses are informed by understanding climate change as an environmental impact and a carbon problem. The third theme considers how both organisations aim to be included in the climate change discourse as it takes place in other sectors, particularly in the natural environment sector and how they attempt to challenge these existing nature/culture dichotomies. However, I will argue that they do not overcome this dualism on the ontological level.

Throughout, it argues that both organisations uphold an anthropocentric approach that aims to demonstrate heritage’s relevance and positive impact by emphasising the benefits of its conservation to its human custodians, while climate change remains framed as an external impact. The latter prevents a critical reflection of the existing heritage discourse, the socio-environmental and political drivers of the climate crisis and the role heritage plays in these. Therefore, in conclusion, this thesis briefly reflects on what role heritage could play in futures that challenge the current status quo.