Conservation standards

A resource for standards in conservation

Standards are everywhere, from domestic equipment like hairdryers and light bulbs to professional items such as humidifiers or cameras. Standards have been in use in heritage conservation for many years and are still evolving today. A standard offers guidance to good practice - an agreed way of doing something - and combines the distilled wisdom of people with expertise in their subject matter.

Icon’s own professional standards require members to “be conversant with national and international principles, philosophies and guidelines relevant to your practice.”  So awareness of the full range of published conservation standards is essential.

What is a standard?

A Standard is a guide to best practice. Standards are designed for voluntary use – no-one is forced to follow a set of rules that makes life harder - they offer ways to do things better. They are not legally binding but they can be used to underpin contractual arrangements. Standards keep on evolving as new solutions develop and demonstrate to clients, colleagues and stakeholders that you are up to date with your area of the profession . 

The conservation standards listed below set down best practice in a concise way, summarising current approaches to the conservation of cultural heritage collections and buildings, for the benefit both of professional conservators and of those employing, commissioning or working alongside them. They have proved really useful for informing colleagues and clients about their work. The standards do not specify how conservation is to be carried out; this is down to the conservator’s professional judgment. Some of them do however describe tests or investigations, for instance for the effectiveness of materials and processes, or a measure of the outcomes of interventions; while others suggest best practice for environmental conditions.

Who writes the standards?

Conservators, conservation managers, scientists and architects from the UK, alongside those from many other European countries, have been compiling the suite of BS EN Conservation standards listed below. They contribute to the working groups (one working group for each proposed standard) and report to Committee  B/560 of the British Standards Institution Conservation of tangible cultural heritage on which Icon and about ten other UK heritage conservation bodies are represented. 

The published documents have been agreed after a rigorous drafting process and voting system. Although developed collaboratively across Europe, under the auspices of CEN – the European standards organisation, each standards body (e.g. BSI) publishes each standard nationally. They are revised every five years, in the light of their proven usefulness and changing practice. Because of varying practice across different parts of Europe, the standards sometimes offer a compromise, and when this happens there is generally a note drawing attention to this.  Despite Brexit, the UK is expected to stay within the CEN framework at least to the end of 2023.

There are other conservation standards particular to the UK, i.e. not under the auspices of CEN and so without EN in their title. They have been compiled solely by conservation and other relevant professionals within the UK. These are listed separately below.

How to get involved

There is a continuing need for UK conservators to take part in the compilation of new standards and the revision of existing ones. If you would like to be involved, please consider volunteering.

It may be possible for you to join B/560, which is the committee within the British Standards Institute (BSI) with responsibility for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage standards. If you are interested in this, contact the committee directly as described in the Guidance document below. 

However, you don’t have to be a member of B/560 to contribute. There are several stages in the development or review of a standard where the wider UK conservation community can get involved. Contributions need to be channelled through B/560, and in turn B/560 feeds into the relevant European standards committee, CEN/TC 346.

Please refer to Guidance on contributing to standards development below:

Guidance on contributing to standards development.docx

Examples of recent, current and forthcoming work 

• PAS 2035:2023 Retrofitting dwellings for improved energy efficiency – Specification and guidance
• PAS 2030:2023 Installation of energy efficiency measures in existing dwellings – Specification

These standards are currently available for public comment, with a deadline of 26 April 2023.

You can find them at British Standards Institution – Project (bsigroup.com) (for PAS 2035:2023) and at British Standards Institution – Project (bsigroup.com) (for PAS 2030/2023) and if you scroll down to the bottom of the respective standard’s page you will find a button to download the Draft for Public Comment and a button to Read draft and comment.

For a comprehensive list of all work in progress, check the B/560 page on the BSI website. 

How to get hold of the standards

University libraries and some other institutional libraries have online access to the standards, both the European-based ones ( BS EN…)  and the UK ones (BS…), where they can be read online and often printed out without charge. Anyone in the UK can join a national library (the British Library, the National Library of Scotland or the National Library of Wales) for free, usually through a simple online process, and can then read the standards online. In institutions that belong to the National Conservation Service access is free for eleven of the standards. Organisations that subscribe to BSI can obtain them all at half-price.

The standards can all be bought from the BSI Shop.

Fourteen of some of the more recent BS EN standards have been published together as a single book at an affordable price. The German publisher Beuth, has put out in English DIN Handbook 410: Conservation of Cultural Heritage 2. Priced at only 128 Euros for an online version or hard copy: 14 standards on nearly 400 pages. Those 14 standards are indicated below thus **

There are several other sources offering the same European [EN] standards in English. One is the Polish national standards body (PKN) (use Google Translate). Possibly the best value is provided by the Estonian national standards body.

Please note that the complete titles all start with either “Conservation of cultural heritage…” or “Conservation of cultural property…”  These prefixes are not repeated in the lists below

Discounts for Icon members

Icon members get 20% discount for the purchase of standards. Please email [email protected] with your order and include your Icon membership number. Your order will then be fulfilled in either hard copy or PDF format, and pre-payment can be made by either credit card or BACS transfer.

The 20% discount will apply to all standards which have been adopted by BSI.

For non-adopted standards, the discount available is 10%.

Please note that a £5.95 delivery charge will apply for hard copy orders.

British Standards

Other BSI conservation standards

UK conservators are invited to collaborate in the preparation of new standards and the revision of existing standards. Please email [email protected]