Toward a Sustainability Standard for Cultural Organizations: Borrowing From Tourism

ABSTRACT Cultural organizations are increasingly engaging with sustainability, yet they lack a sector‐specific standard to guide and institutionalize efforts as long‐term strategies. This study reviews research papers on sustainability standards in the tourism sector, a field with greater experience with such tools, and horizontally borrows insights into the cultural sector. Using a mixed‐methods approach, we begin with a semi‐systematic literature review of 42 selected papers to identify governance practices for the design and implementation of standards. This is followed by a diffractive analysis that rereads insights through the contextual realities of cultural organizations. The study proposes a conceptual framework to inform the development of a tailored sustainability standard for cultural organizations and, more broadly, for the sector. The framework addresses critical dimensions such as responding to the need for benchmarking, establishing sustainability‐related tasks as routines, and recognizing the global momentum driving sustainability transitions with cultural organizations as entities of public trust.