The Activity of the European Standardization Committee CEN/TC 346 Conservation of Cultural Heritage from 2004 to 2020

The contribution aims to summarize the huge amount of work carried out by CEN TC 346, the European committee for standardization of cultural heritage, from its establishment in 2004 to the present. A specific European standardization activity in the field of cultural heritage conservation was proposed to ensure a shared, science-based approach in order to guarantee best practices, more effective planning and implementation, and obtaining the best results. The work program was initially based on five working groups which had the responsibility to manage a few standardization projects according to the human resources initially available. Over time, the work program was implemented thanks to the active contributions of European member countries. Notwithstanding, standards were developed according to a need-based approach; it is possible to individuate a certain coherence in their development, very similar to a matrix approach. As a consequence, eight topics were presented and discussed, and four of them were strictly related to the issues discussed in the general document related to the conservation process. The remaining topics dealt with building management for storage heritage collections, monitoring of archaeological deposits for preservation in situ, handling of movable objects and finally the procurement of conservation services and works. The potential direct impact on the environment and also benefits to the sustainability of cultural heritage have been taken into account for each standard proposed.