Why cultural sustainability is essential for the survival of museums and libraries

MUSEUMS and libraries — particularly through their special collections — safeguard cultural artefacts that form a vital part of the heritage of the communities they serve. Beyond their holdings, these institutions themselves — including their histories and physical spaces — are cultural assets that enrich local life and contribute to regional tourism.

Their core mission is to hold these assets in trust for the public. Yet mounting challenges now threaten their long-term survival, with serious implications for the cultural heritage they steward.

There is growing recognition that culture holds equal importance alongside social, economic, and environmental pillars in building a sustainable society. The United Nations’ post-2015 sustainability agenda explicitly acknowledged this, as highlighted by the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA, 2013).

With cultural heritage preservation and cultural vitality now understood as central to cultural sustainability, museums and libraries have a timely opportunity to demonstrate their unique value. Yet, policy frameworks continue to treat cultural sustainability as secondary — valuing these institutions primarily for their instrumental contributions to social, economic, or environmental goals, rather than for their intrinsic cultural role.

A clear disconnect persists: while many museums and libraries already operate with cultural sustainability at their core, policy still measures their worth through ancillary benefits. To correct this, policy must align institutional practice with broader societal values. Revising policies to treat cultural sustainability as a primary, standalone objective — not an add-on — would strengthen the case for continued public and institutional support. It would also help articulate the distinct, irreplaceable role these institutions play in sustaining culture.

Though governance structures vary — spanning public, private, and academic sectors — the central mission of all museums and libraries remains the same: to collect, preserve, and provide access to cultural and informational resources for the benefit of users.

Museums are tasked with honouring the legacy of past contributions to pass knowledge to future generations. Libraries focus on selecting, organising, preserving, and disseminating information — increasingly in both physical and digital forms. Despite differences in emphasis, both institutions steward diverse cultural assets critical to community identity and continuity.

Their role, however, extends beyond preservation. Museums, in particular, have long embraced a broader social responsibility — using their collections and expertise to address contemporary issues and improve communities. This ethos is now embedded in museum theory and practice. The Museums Association’s “Museums 2020” initiative, for instance, outlines goals ranging from improving lives and building communities to protecting the environment.

Libraries, too, are expected to deliver wide-ranging social impact — supporting health and wellbeing, education, and economic development. This active societal engagement is not optional; it is essential for institutional survival, especially as public funding faces scrutiny. Demonstrating immediate, tangible relevance helps counter perceptions that cultural stewardship is merely a “nice-to-have”.

The “triple bottom line” — balancing economic, social, and environmental outcomes — has become a standard framework for evaluating institutional value. Originating from ecological concerns, it evolved to recognise that true sustainability requires harmonising all three pillars. If any one falters, the system collapses.

For museums and libraries, this framework offers practical advantages: it provides measurable benchmarks beyond economic profit, supports marketing and public engagement, and enables cross-sector policy development. Energy-saving initiatives, for example, yield both environmental and financial benefits. Community outreach enhances social impact while boosting institutional visibility.

Yet this approach has a critical blind spot: it continues to evaluate culture through its instrumental effects — its ability to serve other goals — rather than recognising its inherent worth. This trend, entrenched since the 1980s, stems from the difficulty of quantifying culture’s intrinsic value.

Recent shifts in sustainable development thinking now position culture as a distinct, equally vital “fourth pillar”. Once subsumed under social sustainability, culture is increasingly recognised as foundational to societal cohesion, identity, and even our capacity to understand and respond to economic, social, and environmental challenges.

Culture encompasses both tangible outputs — artworks, archives, artefacts — and intangible systems: shared beliefs, practices, values, and ways of knowing. It is the fabric that binds communities and shapes how societies interpret and act upon global challenges. Without culture, sustainable development lacks meaning and direction.

This reframing offers museums and libraries a powerful platform. Their core work — preserving heritage, fostering creativity, enabling intercultural dialogue — directly sustains the cultural systems upon which all other pillars depend.

Despite broad consensus — including in the UN’s post-2015 goals and Unesco’s 2013 recommendations — sustainability research in museums and libraries still prioritises environmental, economic, and social dimensions. Cultural sustainability remains underexplored, especially in libraries, where its role is less visibly tied to physical collections.

Some argue that because cultural sustainability is already embedded in institutional practice, it needs no special policy attention. But this view perpetuates the instrumentalisation of culture. Even initiatives framed as “social impact” — such as community engagement or education — often rest on cultural foundations. Without naming and valuing culture explicitly, institutions miss the chance to claim their full, unique contribution.

Encouragingly, recent scholarship is beginning to fill this gap. Stylianou-Lambert, Boukas, and Christodoulou-Yerali (in “Museums and Cultural Sustainability”) propose a model assessing museum sustainability across all four pillars, with cultural sustainability broken into seven key areas:

• Heritage preservation
• Cultural skills and knowledge
• Memory and identity
• New audiences and inclusion
• Cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue
• Creativity and innovation
• Artistic vitality

This framework offers a roadmap for policy and practice.

Kirsten Loach, Jennifer Rowley, and Jillian Griffiths argue that for museums and libraries to gain proper recognition, cultural sustainability must be central — not peripheral — to policy. They call for deeper, broader research that moves beyond conservation to explore the full spectrum of cultural contributions.

They also propose rethinking sustainability models themselves. Rather than treating all four pillars as equal within the museum/library context, models should start with cultural sustainability as the core — and examine how social, economic, and environmental structures support it.

• Social structures would include governance, staff, community partnerships, and collaborative networks that sustain cultural value.
• Economic strategies would focus on funding models, cost efficiency, and revenue generation aligned with cultural missions.
• Environmental considerations would address the physical conditions needed to preserve collections, while also reconciling conservation needs with ecological responsibility (eg climate control vs. energy efficiency).

This approach does not ignore broader societal responsibilities. Rather, it ensures sustainability frameworks are relevant and actionable for cultural professionals — helping resolve tensions (like eco-unfriendly preservation practices) and embedding sustainability into institutional DNA.

Museums and libraries are natural stewards of cultural sustainability. As global agendas increasingly recognise culture’s foundational role, these institutions have a powerful opportunity to reassert their societal value — not as service providers to other goals, but as guardians of the cultural systems that make sustainable societies possible.

Policies that elevate cultural sustainability to equal standing with social, economic, and environmental concerns will not only validate the unique mission of museums and libraries — they will help secure their future.

* Dr Vusi Shongwe works in the Department of Sport, Arts, and Culture in KwaZulu-Natal and writes in his personal capacity.

** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, IOL, or Independent Media.

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