Product Description

The first Industrial Revolution inaugurated 200 years of unparalleled material development for humankind. But the costs and the consequences are now everywhere evermore apparent: the living systems on which we depend are in retreat. Forests, topsoil, grasslands, wetlands, oceans, coral reefs, the atmosphere, aquifers, tundra and biodiversity are limiting factors - the natural capital on which all economic activity depends. And they are all in decline. Add to that a doubling of the world's population and a halving of available per capita resources in the first 50 years of the 21st century and the inevitability of change is clear. This work offers forms of industry and commerce that can not only enhance enormously the wellbeing of the world's growing population, but will reverse the destruction and pollution of nature and restore the natural processes so vital to the future. The book introduces four central and interrelated strategies necessary to perpetuate abundance, avert scarcity and deliver a solid basis for social development. The first of these is: Radical Resource Productivity - getting two, four, or even ten times as much from the same quantities of materials and energy. A revolution in efficiency that provides the most immediate opportunities for businesses to grow and prosper. The second strategy is: Ecological Redesign - eliminating the very idea of waste by designing industrial systems on the model of ecological ones. Instead, for example, of digging minerals out of the ground only to return them to landfill at the end of the product cycle, industrial processes will be designed to reuse materials constantly, in closed circles. The third strategy involves creating: A Service and Flow Economy - shifting from an economy of goods and purchases to one of service and flow, and redefining the relationship between producer and consumer. Affluence will no longer be measured by acquisition and quantity, but by the continuous receipt of quality, utility and performance. The final strategy is: Investing in Natural capital - reversing the worldwide ecosystem destruction to restore and expand the stocks of natural capital. If industrial systems are to supply an increasing flow of services in the future, the vital flow of services from living systems will have to be maintained or increased as well.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #155414 in Books
• Published on: 2000-11-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In Natural Capitalism, three top strategists show how leading-edge companies are practising "a new type of industrialism" that is more efficient and profitable while saving the environment and creating jobs. Paul Hawken and Amory and Hunter Lovins write that in the next century cars will get 200 miles per gallon without compromising safety and power, manufacturers will relentlessly recycle their products and the world's standard of living will jump without further damaging natural resources. "Is this the vision of a utopia? In fact, the changes described here could come about in the decades to come as the result of economic and technological trends already in place," the authors write. They call their approach "natural capitalism" because it's based on the principle that business can be good for the environment. For instance, Interface of Atlanta doubled revenues and employment and tripled profits by creating an environmentally friendly system of recycling floor coverings for businesses.

The authors also describe how the next generation of cars is closer than we might think. Manufacturers are already perfecting vehicles that are ultra-light, aerodynamic and fuelled by hybrid electric systems. If natural capitalism continues to blossom, so much money and resources will be saved that societies will be able to focus on issues like housing, contends Hawken, author of a book and US TV series called Growing a Business, and the Lovinses, who co- founded and directed the Rocky Mountain Institute, an environmental think tank in the US. The book is a fascinating and provocative read for public policy makers, as well as environmentalists and capitalists. --Dan Ring, Amazon.com

The Financial Times, 14.10.99
"An analysis of how capitalism would work if the world's "natural capital" were properly valued, resulting in a drastic reduction in resource use by industrialised countries"

People & the Planet, Nov 1999
"An ambitious and stimulating book with plenty of down-to-earth examples of the payoff which this new approach to business can bring"

Customer Reviews

Environmental Constraints are Good for Business
This is a book with a positive message: saving the environment is good for business! And with a bit of modification, capitalism can help us do it.

A key concept is to look for savings in the design of whole systems, rather than just in the component parts. Like designing a new office block to naturally stay cool in summer, rather than installing a more efficient air conditioner. Or designing a manufacturing process which eliminates waste, rather than thinking of the best way to dispose of it.

Many real-life examples illustrate how huge resource savings can be made at low cost, while often improving overall productivity. You start to wonder why it is not already being done, and what we can do to speed things up. Somehow we need to break down the negative image of the environment as a burden, and encourage a more collaborative and innovative culture. Hawken et al. point out the potential for harnessing the very market forces which have led to so much environmental destruction, to help us in this task.

"Natural Capitalism" has convinced me that markets are a powerful tool, as long as we remember that they are here to serve us. We need to accept that ours has never been a 'free' market system, and that we should not be afraid to modify the current distortions which were created for an earlier time. We might as well make it in people's short-term interests to act responsibly. The climate will not care that they have done it for the 'wrong' reasons.

A book with a vision
It is great when you read a book that not only has a vision of the way we should and could live as a consumer society, but is also jam packed with examples of best practice. The examples are mainly US based, but they cover agriculture, building/community design, water, industry, energy and most other aspects of modern living.

The tone is relentlessly upbeat which leads a cynical Brit like me to wonder if all these examples can be so fantastic, but the fact remains that these Yanks have produced an essential alternative vision to that of their President...

Total rubbish!
This is what I call an OOH WOW book. It is as if the authors have read a number of magazine articles and are reporting back what they have read. Like “OOH WOW, there’s a guy who is like building a really cool house that doesn’t need any energy.” And “OOH WOW, if we would all just drive these cars that run on fuel cells, it would be really cool.” And so goes the whole book, with examples (I assume from magazine articles) of various project which MAY be useful, but no information on how to implement them in the real world. In typical OOH WOW fashion, often the projects are embellished with “in the neighbourhood there is hardly any crime, a great sense of community, it is beautiful, etc. etc. etc.” I was waiting for them to add that there were no un-wed mothers either.

After the first fifty pages, I felt that the authors didn’t have a very good grasp of the socio-political-economy, or of ecology. Take the chapter called “wheels,” it is 90 percent about super lightweight “hyper-cars” which will run on fuel cells, but no information on why we don’t have them now or how to implement production. And oh, by the way it is good for people to ride bicycles too. But there isn’t any information as to why more people don’t ride bicycles or how to induce people to. Freight is totally ignored as is mass-transit.

I found the authors naive and quite uninformed. The book a waste of money and a waste of trees.