Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial Revolution

This book lays out an economic program with a great deal of vision. Even though the ideas elaborated upon here seem in most cases like the best courses for economic action, it is doubtful for a number of reasons whether American society will be willing to accept these remedies for what ails us all.

I read this maybe ten years ago, so I am only able to present the ideas that made a vivid impression to me.

Pipes. Taking it as a given that we need to dispense with carbon fuels, the idea of hooking up all of America with pipes is touted as the way to go. We would first transition to natural gas, which is cleaner than oil and coal, but still a non-renewable carbon fuel. We would power our houses and cars with natural gas until it is gone, and then we would use these already established pipes to deliver hydrogen in order to recharge fuel cells for our cars and houses. Not counting the fact that the energy establishment would balk at this big time, I am not sure it makes good economic sense to take the leap of faith that hydrogen cell technology will be there once we are ready for it.

Ecological Industrial Complex. One of the most compelling arguments of this book relates to the amount of GDP tied to the defense industry. Defense, or war really, is seen as the primary engine of our economy. But it could just as easily be seen as waste. War is inherently destructive and shows no potential for driving economic sectors outside of itself. And it is incredibly expensive. As an antidote, green technologies could be seen as a peace subsidy paying massive dividends to the health of our planet and ultimately to the sustainability of our economies. Were we to divert our capital to sustainable energy and the elimination of waste, we would see many clear benefits for all, including a healthier planet and greater quality of life around the globe. We have been immensely successful in developing technologies geared to war. The can-do, get-it-done attitude has yielded fantastic results from our engineering sectors. If we were able to apply that same energy and optimism to developing sustainable and renewable energy, well, the sky's the limit. It is unfortunate that typical Americans are so thoroughly convinced that the elimination of waste is itself a primary source of economic inefficiency.

Consumer ethics. The tragedy of the commons idea states that if something is everybody's problem it becomes nobody's problem and the problem just gets worse. Our fabulously free market creates a tragedy of the commons in this sense. It will take a great deal of consumer responsibility to make our ecological footprint more like humble Bangladesh and less like a commercial dinosaur. But we can all do our part, and every little bit helps, even if it doesn't seem like it. Fair trade, for example, enables consumers in the first world to pay for a higher standard of living to third world producers, partially out of guilt but mostly as a vote of no confidence in our currently highly alienated and alienating economic structures. More significantly, consumer ethics entails buying local to save transport energy costs, buying organic to reduce the amount of crap dumped on our land and in our waterways, or simply doing without things not necessary, thereby saving energy and materials in countless ways.

Carbon credits. I have no idea how this would work. Essentially a tax on polluters and a credit for the good guys, I see no way this is going to take off. It will probably go the way of the bit coin.

Massive transit. The idea of elaborate mass transit systems moving people continuously and efficiently has had a great deal of success in the third world. Energy is saved and the cost to the consumer is consolidated. But people of the third world do this out of necessity. They would much rather take our cars any day. And it is a human pipeline pipe dream to expect Americans to give up their cars without a fight. A move to get rid of the car here would be like a total gun ban in Texas. It simply ain't gonna happen.

There are many more ecological tidbits and conceptual treasures in Natural Capitalism, but the overarching theme seems to be that living right collectively and ecologically doesn't need to be painful and does not necessarily entail a loss of economic growth. It is clear we must have the foresight to engage in sustainable practices, and we must provide the requisite incentives to get these eco-friendly industries off the ground (as we did with the defense industry). It is unfortunately not an open question as to whether these actions will actually come about. The powers that be in our country, from energy to defense to transportation to international commerce to finance to agribusiness, are all likely to send a resounding “no!” to any attempt to mess with the status quo, even if action is direly needed. We are not doomed yet. But without a raising of consciousness and a clear and focused campaign geared toward consumer education, the thoughts in this book might not actually lead anywhere. Yet books such as this one are necessary and in a sense golden in their effort to delay if not prevent the perhaps inevitable ecological collapse of our gluttonous economic engines and unsustainable lifestyles.

I learned so much from this book that it is impossible to record in one review. To some extent I already knew or knew of many theories and approaches outlined in Natural Capitalism, however, finding it all in one coherent and interesting presentation was refreshing.

It has clearly refreshed and renewed my desire to study further system engineering approaches to civic problems.

More review details at: http://jritch.net/2008/12/29/finally-...

Capitalism is probably here to stay. While there are alternatives that can work on a local level, I remain unconvinced that these can either be dispersed widely enough or "scaled up" enough to supplant capitalism as a whole. So the question becomes: how can we make it less damaging -- to our environment? -- to our spirit?

The answer proposed in this book is, simply put, to appeal to the logic of capitalism: i.e. profits. Being good makes sense because it makes money.

Well, almost. While their descriptions of lost opportunities for simple, yet dramatic, efficiencies is a little disturbing (putting the pipe there saves how much?), it is their plea to attach realistic costs to resource usage that really has force. Which is to say that being good doesn't necessarily make sense (money) now, but it will in the long run (if the right legislation is drawn up). Let's hope so -- not for the capitalist's sake but all of ours.

Truthfully, I have a hard time fathoming how anyone could write a book like this without a hefty dose of cynicism. I am probably more idealistic but less optimistic; maybe this book verges on the realistic? Regardless, it is definitely interesting, dense with information and ideas.

This book was supposed to present the argument for a green economy, an argument that saving the environment is good business, and thereby inspire capitalists and captains of industry to make investments to reduce waste, re-purpose technology, and recycle materials for both corporate public accountability and high long-term financial payoffs.

In reality, although oddly prescient in 1999 for certain developments of the 21st Century, this work is grossly naive, making bold assertions laid on a soft, unexamined bed of assumptions.

The goal appears to be bold pronouncements about technological possibilities without digging deeper into their implications. It is a tour of what other people are doing without pointing an energized entrepreneur in any helpful direction to make an impact. There are no counter-arguments presented, let alone deconstructed to support any of the idealistic theses presented to the reader. In the final calculus, the premise is valiant, but the arguments are not persuasive in the least.

This book changed my life and set me on my current path, which I hope will be a career in corporate sustainability. Basically, this is a primer for the next industrial revolution which we are currently entering and seeks to change the paradigm which says sustainability and a good bottom line for countries/corporations are mutually exclusive. In fact, it is now emerging to be just the opposite. The Lovines and Hawkin were prophetic in their predictioins, as we are now seeing what they spelled out in their book.

One of Cambridge Sustainability's Top 50 Books for Sustainability, as voted for by our alumni network of over 3,000 senior leaders from around the world. To find out more, click here.

Natural Capitalism suggests that the world is on the verge of a new industrial revolution - one that promises to transform our fundamental notions about commerce and its role in shaping our future. The authors describe a future in which business and environmental interests increasingly overlap, and in which companies can simultaneously satisfy their customers' needs, increase profits and help solve environmental problems.

Natural capital refers to the natural resources and ecosystem services that make all economic activity possible. Yet current business practices typically fail to take into account the value of these assets, a value that is rising as they become scarcer. As a result, natural capital is being degraded and liquidated by the wasteful use of such resources as energy, materials, water, fibre and topsoil.

What a surprising book. Written by three economists, it reads as one would expect: lots of repetition and economic data encoded in a cascade of prose. However, it is clever, insightful, humorous (at key points), and optimistic in outlining how we can adjust our industrial capitalistic worldview to a more natural capitalistic worldview. The natural capital - the planet and all its resources: air, land, soil, water, coral, ice etc - that we have for the most part not taken into consideration when we make decisions about how to live our lives is something that must be added into our daily to generations-long calculus about how humanity will exist and possibly continue to exist on this planet.

This worldview does not mean we should shutter factories, stop using coal entirely, stop flying in planes, and wear homegrown cotton clothing; on the contrary, they make the sturdy case that business and our way of life should be adapted to understand the true "cost" of our activities (rather than the current "price" of them). We would then make the smart and enlightened changes to make the cycle of resource extraction and usage less damaging and more, well, natural.

It is striking to me - just finishing Tribe, by Sebastian Junger and having read The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and other books about our human needs, human society, and our satisfaction and harmony within it - that this book also references the idea that people don't really just want to be told what to do and feel the expectation of keeping their head down while doing it; we need to feel accomplished and authentic while doing it. We want to feel connected, valued, and important within our communities, and it is important to remember that we are all in a community on this planet. As members of a community we are held to a social contract simply by being born within it; shouldn't we be held to a natural contract with our planet and one another? It is a larger - and smaller, more vulnerable when considered in context of our solar system or interstellar space - community than our visible human one, and arguable as important.

There is too much in this book for me to spill out here, and I most definitely skimmed many of the more boring (to me) chapters that detailed in-depth examples, but I would highly recommend several chapters - the "Reinventing the Wheels", "Waste Not", "Making the World", "Capital Gains", and "Climate" chapters were fascinating - the "Making Markets Work" chapter was also great up to the point where economic theory was broken down into several additional sub-headings.

In general, the authors convinced me that there are alternatives to our market-driven, heedless focus on our human societies as if they were in a vacuum. They are not. We are part of the world, part of a community, and (hilariously, yet seriously) we need to follow the user manual for our planet as outlined in one of the later chapters (p 313).

This book was published the year I graduated high school, so it certainly dated in much of its data and the examples chosen. That said, even with skimming the book provided much food for thought, and I very much recommend it to anyone who wants to take glimpse a vision for how we can adopt a more green/renewable/sustainable economic system that is fair and just for ourselves and our planet. Some of my favorite tidbits are below, but the larger, charismatic (to me) ideas (such as making drivers pay the true cost of driving, rather than simply the prices of driving as we currently do; or even the examination the authors make into the journey a simple can for soda or beer makes - which is staggering), are probably for you - the future reader - to uncover on your own:

- "...the present industrial system is, practically speaking, a couch potato: it eats too much junk food and gets insufficient exercise.... industrial 'empty calories' end up as pollution, acid raid, and greenhouse gasses, harming environmental, social, and financial systems." (14)

- "In nature, nothing edible accumulates; all materials flow in loops that turn waste into food, and the loops are kept short enough so the waste can actually reach the mouth. Technologists should aim to do the same." (71)

- "On the environmental side, scientists are frustrated that many businesspeople do not yet understand the basic dynamics involved in the degradation of biological systems. For business, it seems unthinkable if not ludicrous that you shouldn't be able to create the future by using the same methods that have been successful in the present and past." (159)

- Related to the previous quote: "...the ability to accelerate a car that is low on gasoline does not prove the tank is full." (310) Just because it has been working doesn't mean it will always work.

- "People now know the price of everything, but the true cost of nothing. Price is what the person pays. Cost is what society pays, here, now, elsewhere, and into the future." (168)

- Wendell Berry is quoted at the beginning of the chapter on food production: "When we came across the continent cutting the forests and plowing the prairies, we have never known what we were doing because we have never known what we were undoing." (190)

- "The environmental debate is conducted in a predictable cycle: Science discovers another negative human impact on the environment. Trade groups and businesses counter, the media reports both sides, and the issue eventually gets consigned to a growing list of unresolvable problems. The point is not that one side is right and the other wrong but that the episodic nature of the news, and the compartmentalization of each successive issue, inhibit devising solutions. Environmentalists appear like Cassandra, business looks like Pandora, apologists sound like Dr. Pangloss, and the public feels paralyzed." (309)

A vital read for anyone that wants to work in the field of sustainability! Although the examples haven't aged well, the concepts are current and form a foundation for future developments. Furthermore, its a textbook written as a novel to keep the readers engaged.