Unlocking the Social Impact of Built Heritage Projects: Evaluation as Catalyst of Value?

To be sustainable, projects concerning built heritage resources need to take into account multiple dimensions, including the social one. More particularly, the implementation of initiatives combining either restoration or adaptive reuse with the achievement of social goals may be in some cases greatly recommendable: In fact, these types of interventions could be able not only to preserve and transmit the intrinsic and cultural components of built heritage but also to extend the relevance of the resources to larger segments of society and generate a multifaceted social impact overall. However, to effectively achieve social objectives, the adoption of evaluative thinking seems recommendable. Given this framework, this chapter strives to integrate the regeneration project of a system of historical farmhouses located in Volpiano, Italy, with actions aiming to favor the social inclusion of NEETS (i.e., youths not in education, employment, or training). Considering that the redevelopment of the system of the historical farmhouses was previously studied under the lens of corporate social responsibility, the integration of the social impact perspective represents an evolution in the discourse. By a methodological and processual perspective, the paper then proposes to follow the steps of logic models, while combining qualitative and quantitative evaluation approaches able to firstly describe and then quantify the multiple values engendered through the interventions. Finally, the contribution highlights that the application of evaluative thinking and evaluation procedures to built heritage projects with social objectives may facilitate both the definition and achievement of shared goals and thus function as a real catalyst of value.