Financial institutions typically avoid projects that will have a significant adverse effect on cultural heritage because it creates unwelcome risk and can affect their reputation. For bank clients, adverse project effects on cultural heritage can result in reputation risk, impede access to finance and insurance, increase operational costs, and jeopardize on-time and on-budget delivery of projects. To address this risk, financial institutions implement environmental and social policy frameworks that include specific requirements for the consideration of cultural heritage. This article examines the place of cultural heritage in the lending practices of 25 of the world's largest private-sector banks and its relevance for heritage practitioners who may be retained to provide advice, review or undertake fieldwork, and prepare studies in keeping with the private-sector bank policies and external standards described. The article concludes with a recommended best practice for private-sector financial institutions, a call to action for heritage practitioners to advocate for robust safeguards, and a call for support of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals by both heritage practitioners and private-sector financial institutions.

中文翻译：

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评估私营部门金融机构和文化遗产管理的标准

金融机构通常会避免对文化遗产产生重大不利影响的项目，因为这会产生不受欢迎的风险并可能影响其声誉。对于银行客户而言，项目对文化遗产的不利影响可能会导致声誉风险，阻碍获得融资和保险的机会，增加运营成本，并危及项目的按时和按预算交付。为应对这一风险，金融机构实施环境和社会政策框架，其中包括考虑文化遗产的具体要求。本文探讨了文化遗产在世界上最大的 25 家私营部门银行的贷款实践中的地位，及其与可能被聘用以提供建议、审查或进行实地工作的遗产从业者的相关性，并根据所描述的私营部门银行政策和外部标准准备研究。文章最后为私营部门金融机构推荐了最佳实践，呼吁遗产从业者采取行动倡导强有力的保护措施，并呼吁遗产从业者和私营部门金融机构支持联合国的可持续发展目标。