On the Sustainability of Cultural Capital

The concept of sustainable development as defined in ecological terms can be extended to apply to culture by recognising parallels between the concepts of natural and cultural capital. This paper reviews the definitions of both these forms of capital and shows how they contribute to sustainability. Criteria for weak and strong sustainability are considered, on the basis of which a strong sustainability rule for cultural capital is derived. It is speculated that certain cultural indicators may be useful in providing first approximations to variables that would need to be quantified in any eventual empirical application of this model.