The Social Impact Pledge Scotland is a ground-breaking initiative that aims to promote social responsibility and create positive change. It is a collaboration between the Scottish Government, businesses, and third sector organisations, with a shared vision to make Scotland a fairer, more equitable and sustainable society. Through their pledges, organisations commit to increasing their social impact by changing up to three aspects of their current operations or policies, leading to benefits in communities right across Scotland.
Historic Environment Scotland’s Social Impact Pledge was updated in January 2024 with three new commitments. These all feed directly into Priority 2 of Our Past, Our Future (Empowering resilient and inclusive communities and places) and between them set out to remove some of the barriers that can make accessing and understanding the historic environment a challenge.
Through our three commitments, we aim to:
- support key Gaelic communities to investigate and celebrate their heritage and language, by creating a resource signposting relevant thematic materials, case studies, and sources of funding, to inspire projects and to empower people to use the past to shape the future they want;
- support the role of the historic environment as a national resource for learning through an inclusive approach that supports equality of access for learners of all ages and takes a creative approach to provide targeted opportunities for groups who’d not normally have the chance to participate;
- increase engagement with Scotland’s historic environment by giving access to our sites to residents of Scotland free of charge on the first Sunday of every month from October 2023 – March 2024.
For more information on our three commitments, and to see what other public bodies have pledged to do, visit the Social Impact Pledge website.
