Intellectual capital and sustainable development on islands: an application to the case of Gran Canaria

Abstract

Sustainable development is an objective for any territory, especially when the territory is a small island. To achieve the goal of development and conservation of natural resources, the ideal would be to base a good part of the island’s economy on intangible assets, such as the culture or knowledge, since they neither depreciate nor erode with use. This work proposes a model designed to enable the identification and measurement of the principal intangible assets that contribute to island territories’ achievement of sustainable development. In this work, the model is applied to the island of Gran Canaria (Spain).