Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution

by Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins, Paul Hawken

Overview

This groundbreaking book reveals how today's global businesses can be both environmentally responsible and highly profitable.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316353007
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	10/12/2000
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	9.28(w) x 6.06(h) x 1.01(d)

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
	Acknowledgments	xv
1.	The Next Industrial Revolution	1
2.	Reinventing the Wheels: Hypercars and Neighborhoods	22
3.	Waste Not	48
4.	Making the World	62
5.	Building Blocks	82
6.	Tunneling Through the Cost Barrier	111
7.	Muda, Service, and Flow	125
8.	Capital Gains	144
9.	Nature's Filaments	170
10.	Food for Life	190
11.	Aqueous Solutions	213
12.	Climate: Making Sense and Making Money	234
13.	Making Markets Work	260
14.	Human Capitalism	285
15.	Once Upon a Planet	309
	Notes	323
	References	349
	Index	379

Editorial Reviews

Hawken (The Ecology of Commerce) and Amory and Hunter Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, an environmental think tank, have put together an ambitious, visionary monster of a book advocating "natural capitalism." The short answer to the logical question (What is natural capitalism?) is that it is a way of thinking that seeks to apply market principles to all sources of material value, most importantly natural resources. The authors have two related goals: first, to show the vast array of ecologically smart options available to businesses; second, to argue that it is possible for society and industry to adopt them. Hawken and the Lovinses acknowledge such barriers as the high initial costs of some techniques, lack of knowledge of alternatives, entrenched ways of thinking and other cultural factors. In looking at options for transportation (including the development of ultralight, electricity-powered automobiles), energy use, building design, and waste reduction and disposal, the book's reach is phenomenal. It belongs to the galvanizing tradition of Frances Moore Lapp 's Diet for a Small Planet and Stewart Brand's The Whole Earth Catalog. Whether all that the authors have organized and presented so earnestly here can be assimilated and acted on by the people who run the world is open to question. But readers with a capacity for judicious browsing and grazing can surely learn enough in these pages to apply well-reasoned pressure. Charts and graphs, with accompanying CD-ROM. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A critique of the present economic system and its destructive effects on natural assets, coupled with ideas about how to make it work better. The Lovinses, directors of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a resource policy center, and business author Hawken (The Ecology of Commerce, 1993, etc.) merge their talents and experiences here to offer practical guidelines for reducing the environmental messes made by the industrial world, including pollution, transportation congestion, erosion, and wasted energy of all types. While suggesting solutions, however, they use a good deal of space to attack both contemporary enterprises and those dating to the Industrial Revolution. Targets include specific technologies, corporations, and general business practices, as well as wasteful consumer habits. The aluminum can, for example, is examined in particular detail, from ore mines to assembly lines. Capitalism as an economic system is criticized as "a financially profitable, nonsustainable aberration in human development." Also attracting debate is the free market, vilified as one of the forces causing waste and pollution. This seems unfair, since the same system is an underlying aspect of the solutions cited throughout the book. Rather than abandon capitalism altogether, the authors argue for modification, yielding what they call "natural capitalism." This could mean, for example, assigning value to electricity that is unused, what they call "negawatts." They offer detailed explanations of ideas that yield positive results—i.e., reduced energy usage in a mechanical appliance—but fail to provide a step-by-step plan of action for broader applications. The book nonetheless yields unique value as abroad collection of intriguing ideas that work and compelling pleas for the benefit they bring: increased profits. An accompanying CD contains additional information, mostly the names of appropriate "green" businesses and "clickable" connections to their Web sites. Despite their unease with the present economic system, the authors ultimately favor individual responsibility and local and entrepreneurial initiatives for solving environmental problems.

Kirkus Reviews