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Summary: Interesting
Review: The message in "Natural Capitalism" is simple: The Industrial Revolution is over. We don't have to drive gas-guzzling cars fueled by dead dinosaurs anymore. We don't have to accept toxic waste as a byproduct of industry. Instead, industry can operate cleanly and more lucratively with sustainable "closed-loop" cycles, and consumers can enjoy better products and services with cleaner tap water and breathable air. Waste is not only bad, it's obsolete. The book also points out the arrival of 'hybrid cars'. Powered by electricity and fuel, these new automobiles average 80 mpg and emit significantly less pollution. They're easier to manufacture and, if Japan is any indication, extremely popular. Toyota's first model, the Prius, was released in Tokyo in December 1997 and "sold out two months' production on the first day."That Japanese drivers have been cruising in hybrid vehicles for two years while Americans have been gobbling up sport utility vehicles is one of the disturbing facts in Natural Capitalism. Time and again, the book demonstrates how the United States is lagging behind Japan, Germany and Sweden in environmental entrepreneurship. Some tales of American consumption are downright eerie: "Alongside the average American's daily food sits the ghostly presence of nearly a half pound of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer used to grow it." What's particularly likable about Natural Capitalism is that presents a way for us ordinary consumers -- we who buy food at supermarkets, live in houses and drive cars -- to get an insider's glimpse of the vast industries that essentially control our lives.
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Summary: Response to review by John A. Matthews
Review: I wish Mr. Matthews had read our book more carefully. Every factual claim he makes is incorrect. The book does mention industrial ecology four times, including the famous Kalundborg example in Denmark. Takeback/producer responsibility laws are also discussed, with specific reference to Japan and with German examples. Although Enron is mentioned in different contexts than he wishes, the chapter on markets does indeed discuss creative ways (many of them invented at Rocky Mountain Institute) to make markets in saved resources. While I fear we did not satisfy Mr. Matthews's preferences for emphasis and ideology, our book does not have the defects he ascribes to it. -- ABL
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Summary: On Natural Capital
Review: This book does an excellent job of telling a story that desperately needs telling. Corporations and the people who run them aren't inherently evil. They're set up according to the wrong rules and their leaders are forced to play by those rules or be removed for being irresponsible. This book argues that we need to fix the rules, to align the power of limited risk investing (i.e. you can't lose more money than you invest) that corporations provide with the goals of a cleaner more healthy environment.
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Summary: Fabulous
Review: This book is both discouraging and encouraging. The facts that are presented regarding our current ways of doing business are enough to make any sane person want to do something to evolve to a better way of doing everything. The authors do a fantastic job of presenting realistic solutions to help ensure our existence as a species. Bravo!
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Summary: Green business strategy
Review: Anyone interested in green business strategies that go far beyond inadequate attempts at recycling should read this book. It is literally a business plan and operations manual for companies striving toward environmental sensitivity, while still aiming to make a profit. David Liscio,Ecology Instructor,Endicott College, School of Graduate and Professional Studies, Beverly, Massachusetts
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Summary: Natural Socialism
Review: I had been excited by the title, thinking it offered some bold new green ideas - but it offers up recycling, solar energy, greater manufacturing efficiency, and leasing copiers? I agree with the environmental problems presented, but not with most of the solutions. There were a lot of "duh" moments while reading, i.e. "Innovations in manufacturing help cut...costs." or "A further key way to waste fewer materials is to improve...quality". Also, the author has a socialist bent I found disturbing. "The economy is massively inefficient," "The Capitalist system is based on accounting principals that would bankrupt any business" "The best...environment for commerce is provided by systems of governance that are based on the needs of people rather than business" "Societies need to adopt shared goals that enhance social welfare but that are not the prerogatives of specific value or belief systems" (What about freedom and democracy as values?). One chapter is called "Making markets work" - I think our market already works. The author also assigns too many ills of society to our economic theory, which is an oversimplification. Capitalism will create a new economy based on info technology that will run cleaner and more efficiently! We shouldn't still be focused on creating the new "industrial" revolution, but the new "information economy". Had they created more efficiency or more green building in Socialist countries? Seems like the Internet, green building, and fuel cells are only happening in our competitive Capitalist markets.
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Summary: A Breath of Fresh Air
Review: I thought this book was amazing- I came upon it in the most random way (another book by the same author was lying around my office) and, wow, it was worth it! I doubted that it could deliver on its sweeping claim from the first chapter, but deliver it did, and then some. Some of the most compelling ideas that I found were: The beautiful aquariums set into the architecture of a company headquarters- that was also a sewage treatment facility! The fact that simply changing the piping setup for installing a backup water pump can vastly improve the efficiency (and the bottom line)of a factory. And, perhaps the most eye-opening chapter for me, the city of Curitiba in Brazil that was completely renovated under the watch of visionary city planners with (for example) the most effective bus system in the world. If any of these things pique your curiosity, READ THIS BOOK. It goes from the most nitty-gritty considerations of what gadge wire should be used in building codes to the most far-reaching aspirations of how our civilization is capable of reforming itself. I am nineteen years old, I've read lots of books, and this is one of the five best, hands down. I have since checked out the Rocky Mountain Institute (the organization that produced the book) and I am hoping to intern there one day. That is how important Natural Capitalism is.
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Summary: Challenges entrepreneurial thinking with a call for action
Review: This book cuts through the usual gloss and fluff of other "earth friendly eco-supporting books" by providing solid compelling data ( backed up with extensive detailed references)on our current (mis)use of natural resources and the eventual conclusion that soon we will see that capitalism and proper use of our natural resources can be combined and achieve financial success. This book will be seen as the precursor for refreshing change and a new understanding of what we need to do in the future. Buy it ! Read it ! Live it !
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Summary: Is there hope for the future? Yes!
Review: People who care about the ongoing destruction of our environment can get shell-shocked by the relentless tide of bad news. This wonderful book doesn't gloss over our problems, but uses them as a jumping-off point for its central thesis: fixing them need not gut our living standards or depress our economies. On the contrary, it can be a giant opportunity in the finest tradition of capitalism. The book abounds with examples of how enlightened companies have cut resource use and pollution by 75%, 90% or even more--and made money doing it. As one reviewer said: it should be on the night stand of every CEO in the world.
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Summary: Possiblity for Peace in Our Time
Review: Do you remember Cat Stevens' song, "Peace train gonna take this country/Come, take me home again"? When that song came out in my young adulthood, I felt it as somehow true. A few years ago Dolly Parton released a wonderful cover of the song. When I heard it I had the troubling realization that while I still had the hope, I no longer believed that this could happen in my lifetime. The first chapter of Natural Capitalism led me to realize that I have been stuck in thinking of our natural resources of materials, methods, people and ideas in an unnecessarily limited way. Paul Hawken, Amory and L.Hunter Lovins explain how we do not have to resign ourselves to sustainable living only for the rich or only in miserly conditions. We have the clear and practical possibility of sufficiency and equity for all of family earth. I consider this a condition for peace, allowing right livelihood, social equity and justice for all.
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