The notion of ‘cultural footprint’ appears as an analogy to ‘ecological footprint’, which since the 1990s has been used to measure the impact of human action on natural resources and on ecosystems’ capacity to regenerate necessary resources for continuity of life. Despite diff erences between the preservation of biologicaldiversity or biodiversity, and cultural diversity, transferring the paradigm of “ecological footprint’ to a cultural context also means reasserting the importance of culture (in all its diff erent tangible and intangible senses) to sustainable human development.

The article attempts to transfer some approaches in assessing ‘cultural footprint’ into the European context, as they often originate in other continents and especially in developing countries.