Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution

Rating:
Summary: Another dissenting opinion
Review: Any book that seeks to bring the economic and business system more into alignment with the natural processes of the Earth, is surely welcome. And like the other reviewers, I find much that is attractive, sensible, innovative and informative in the book. It's the things that are left out that are troubling. Why, in a work of synthesis, that proclaims the launch of a new economic paradigm, would something as fundamental as ecological cycles and their economic implementation, get such short shrift? Yes, recycling within firms is discussed at some length -- but recycling through the economic system, with firms interlinked through economically driven connections, is ignored. For that matter, it is inexplicable that the very term "industrial ecology" is completely absent from the text -- and yet the structuring of the economy so that it mimics ecological cycles should surely be one of the central aims of "natural capitalism." The inexplicable absence of such an important topic bespeaks partiality, and that spells trouble for a work of synthesis.

Another troubling oversight concerns recycling manufacturing materials. There is a lengthy discussion of corporate recycling initiatives, covering paper, carpets, fibers, food etc. All depend on individual company initiative. This is fine, as far as it goes. But when it comes to the critical issue of a whole industrial economy tackling the problem, as Japan has done, mandating through MITI regulation that all components to be used in an increasingly wide range of manufactured products are to be recyclable, over a span of years -- well, this kind of initiative is completely ignored. It can't be because the authors are ignorant of Japan -- after all they devote an entire chapter to the impressive achievements of "lean thinking" which originated in Japan. One suspects that the authors simply have no political tolerance for solutions that span more than single firms, and particularly for solutions that have governments imposing enlightened directives on all firms in an industry that are designed to give these firms a collective competitive advantage.

Natural capitalism is an attractive concept -- but it is given a very particular slant in this text. The chapter on markets, for example, is really a diatribe against market inefficiencies and management short-sightedness. One looks in vain for a constructive sense as to how markets might be harnessed more effectively to achieve natural objectives and biomimicry. The work of firms like Enron, which very creatively makes markets in resource use where none existed before, is completely ignored. Let us say that these authors have created some interesting signposts, but there is still a long journey to be accomplished before the conceptual apparatus of business and economics is in harmony with Gaia.

Rating:
Summary: A dissenting opinion
Review: In Chapter 1 the authors describe their book as "an overview and a call to action." The overview is that businesses and consumers should use fewer resources. That's not exactly a stunning concept. One would ask, what company in the competitive world today does NOT try to use fewer resources? The concept is obvious, but it's the core of the book. Not that this is bad. But it's the call to action that makes me nervous.

How are businesses going to "learn" to use fewer resources? Well, how about it they HAVE to use fewer resources. How about if there are fines and jail time for those who use "too many" resources?

And what about companies who actually do use fewer resources? Simple. They product fewer goods and of lower quality. This is the book's real call to action: Let's get together and reduce the number of products in the world. The authors wave the time-worn, discredited banner of over-population. Their attitude is: we don't want so many people around, so let's make it even more difficult to purchase the goods and services we need to have families.

For instance, talk about stifling business---the authors suggest we lease products instead of buying them. Ok, let's say I lease a washing machine from a manufacturer of washing machines. How long until that manufacturer builds a better dishwasher? It would never happen. You would never see a better washing machine. Why? Because in order to build and lease a BETTER washing machine, a company would have to take back all thes old washing machines as trade-ins. So it makes a lot more sense for the manufacturer to become a service company, sending out technicians to fix the old clunkers. Whatever happens, you will never see a new, improved washing machine. This is typical of the authors' truncated view of reality, in which there will be nothing new and improved

There are no new ideas in this book. And the only way in which their faded fancies will ever come to fruition is by force. That's the part that makes me nervous. That's the part that will land like a mail-order hammer upon the third world.

Rating:
Summary: Natural Capitalism Right on the Money
Review: In the summer of 1999, the Harvard Business Review treated the business community to a glimpse of a bold new model for business and industry in the 21st century. The HBR has been filling requests ever since for the article by Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins and Paul Hawken titled "A Road Map for Natural Capitalism." The article described how businesses could profit by employing strategies built around a more productive use of natural resources. The authors explained in a very practical, yet compelling manner how these strategies could go a long way toward solving many current environmental problems.

Business readers and anyone concerned about the changing global economy and its impact on the ecosystem will want more than copies of the HBR article once they realize it was actually a tantalizing synopsis of the authors' new book, "Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution" (Little, Brown, 1999). This important book can take its place alongside such touchstone volumes as "Future Shock," "Megatrends " and "The New New." The authors describe in vivid detail how business and industry can gain competitive advantage through a new business model based on doing much more with much less.

The authors set out to prove that changing realities of the information economy and global competitiveness are already transforming industry and commerce in ways unforeseen even a few years ago. The new business model takes into account the values of all forms of "capital" including human, manufactured, financial, and natural. "Natural Capitalism" starts with an elegantly simple premise: economies need no longer be based on the idea that human capital is finite and natural resources are infinitely abundant when the obvious truth of the 21st Century is exactly the opposite.

With mounting confidence, Lovins, Lovins and Hawken predict that the latest industrial revolution will create "a vital economy that uses radically less material and energy." Businesses that recognize the trend toward this new type of industrialism will gain advantage over their less alert competitors. Those that postpone this shift will be left behind and will eventually, make themselves irrelevant in the new economy.

Theirs is not merely a detailed updating of Buckminster Fuller's "small is beautiful" thesis. Rather, the authors describe a step-by-step process of business restructuring that should result in more efficiency at the corporate, national and global level. Such a process, if carried out across several industries simultaneously, would make it much easier for governments to promote social equity and conserve or even restore the natural ecosystems reaching across traditional borders.

This next stage of industrialism, the authors' "natural capitalism," is founded on four core business strategies already being adopted by the most innovative corporations across the globe. The strategies suggest that companies need to:

1) employ technology and design innovations to use resources much more productively. This results, of course, in companies using fewer resources, reducing pollution, and setting the stage to create more jobs;

2) practice "biomimicry" by redesigning industrial systems to be more like biological systems, leading to an elimination of even the concept of waste;

3) shift from an economy based on goods and purchases to an economy based on service and flow. This concept leads to a quantum shift in how manufacturing companies service their clients, especially in terms of inventories, sales strategies, etc; and

4) reinvest in "natural capital" to sustain, restore and expand the resources on which industry, and ultimately all life, and therefore all livelihood, depends.

"Natural Capitalism" is not a "gloom and doom, industry vs. the environment" anti-consumerism rant. Neither do the authors fall into the trap of proposing a Pollyanna hypothesis that begins with "if only we could change our basic cultural values." Lovins, Lovins and Hawken make elegant use of facts and examples from several industrial sectors and actual case histories of large and small companies based in the US and overseas.

Consider the "Hypercar," a synthesis of emerging automobile technologies developed in 1991 by the Rocky Mountain Institute, the think tank founded by Amory and Hunter Lovins. Imagine "a family sedan, sport-utility, or pickup truck that combines Lexus comfort and refinement, Mercedes stiffness, Volvo safety, BMW acceleration, Taurus price, four-to eightfold improved fuel economy (that is, 80 to 200 miles per gallon), a 600 to 800 mile range between refuelings, and ZERO emissions."

If such technological innovations sound like eco-friendly pipe dreams, think again. Today, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen and others are actively competing to bring this revolutionary vehicle to the market within the next few years.

As global a corporate presence as DuPont is already feeling (and no doubt, influencing) a sea change in manufacturing philosophy. The Delaware-based chemical giant is on record in favor of "comprehensive resource productivity". In DuPont's words, "sustainable growth has to be focused on a functionality, not a product. The next major step toward sustainable growth is to improve the value of our products and services per unit of natural resources employed." To that end, DuPont is "down-gauging" its polyester film, making it thinner, stronger and more valuable so that it may sell less material at a higher price.

What the Lovins and Hawken have given us with "Natural Capitalism" is nothing less than an up-to-date business manual for the next century, complete with clear explanations and solid, real world examples. Their thinking finds common ground between business and environmental interests and makes the common sense case for how the two outlooks are merging into a new, practical, eco-friendly approach to making a profit.

Just as business and civic leaders in Atlanta and elsewhere are redefining how sprawling cities should grow, "Natural Capitalism" redefines how businesses and ultimately the entire planet should grow to sustain a prosperous and equitable quality of life for the indefinite future.

Rating:
Summary: The Definitive & Defining Book of the 20th century. A Previw
Review: Rather than read the book which is said to be a trilateral e-mail production, more people should first have had the good luck to carefully "read" two of its persuasive authors as this antipodeally located reviewer was lucky enough to do*. Natural Capitalism will, in the years to come, be known as the definitive - and defining - work of the 20th century. Its tenets really purge Capitalism of all the defects which it had accumulated since it was first mooted by Richard Cobden, In fact, considering Nature to be limitless and humans to be scarce, the underpinning of classical western capitalism which had murderously linked itself to Darwin's oversimplifications, created a matrix in which scientific and technological progress was possible only under the goad to develop weaponry destructive of life on this planet. Worse, it promulgated a globally dominant accounting methodology which stayed in dangerous denial of the REAL capital of this planet.

Most of the ideas discussed in the book have a resonance in the thinking of the late R Buckminster Fuller but are more cogently and less adversorially stated than in Fuller's Critical Path or the Grunch of Giants It is very heartening to learn that major players are heeding its urgent advice. More important, Natural Capitalism, if translated in the Indian languages such as Hindi, Bengali Telugu, Tamil and Gujarati will find emerging global businesses from India learning from American thinking some of the ideas mentioned in their own ancient scriptures. For further interaction in this regard. the authors/readers of Natural Capitalism are invited to contact this reviewer at [e-mail] , asap. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Based on the authors' interview-responses on the BBC World Service sw-radio series Future Oerfect and the special edition of Global Business and Carol Pearson's Talk To America on the Voice of America

Rating:
Summary: Ideas in sustainable development mature
Review: Paul Hawken and the Lovins' move the ideas of sustainable societial development forward with this new book. Natural Capitalism outlines many of the cutting edge technologies and philosophies that will do well by doing good. It is important to note that this is not a green guide to wacky business ideas, but a sound guidepost to solid profitable business opportunities. The book is written in such as way as to inspire systems thinking and to promote applications of this thinking to any business.

It is nice to read such a manuscript and come away inspired to apply these ideas to your own job or business. In times where it is easy to forecast gloom and doom, here are three people working in a positive way to bring about change that benefits us all. It should be the first book that any business school uses to inspire its students to the opportunities that exists for business and product designers who, desire to "love all of the children, of all of the species, all of the time".

Rating:
Summary: Compliments and Complement
Review: Paul Hawken is an excellent writer, clear thinker and first-rate synthesizer; Amory Lovins is a genius; and Hunter Lovins is a world-class organizer and positive force. So it's not surprising that this team has written a very important, must-read book. Capitalism does have its advantages after all, but as it is currently practiced it will lead us to our collective grave. Fortunately the dynamic trio, shows better ways of doing business.

For those of us who aren't CEO sorts (and can't immediately implement the type of innovations Natural Capitalism advocates), yet who still want their financial life to move us in a positive direction, I highly recommend The Mindful Money Guide. This book is an excellent complement to Natural Capitalism as it thoughtfully guides us to a healthier (in all senses of the word) and simpler financial life. It's also very well written.

Rating:
Summary: The most important book of the century.
Review: Natural Capitalism is the most important book of the century, a handbook of solutions and restoration that will have CEOs and ecologists cheering together. In The Ecology of Commerce, Paul showed us that, in the last century, business learned how to take the planet apart, no one in history has done it better or faster, now Paul, Amory, and Hunter are your expert guides to how companies and individuals are redesigning commerce to put back more than they take from the earth. After reading this book, there is no longer any excuse for pessimism and inaction. Required reading for all crewmembers of Spaceship Earth. That means you, so get to reading.

Rating:
Summary: A Revolutionary Book
Review: Natural Capitalism will change the way humans utilize resources. The authors make a compelling case for applying efficiency principals to a broad base of industries. When these principals are utilized on a broad scale, a host of environmental problems such as climate change and air pollution can be solved.

CEO's of companies big and small need to read this book and apply its lessons. In doing so, they will increase their firm's profitability and make themselves more competitive in the marketplace. They will also take a giant step forward in healing our wounded planet.

Rating:
Summary: Natural Capitalism is a MUST READ for MBA's, CEO's, Politici
Review: Throughout this extensively researched book, the three authors (Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins) eloquently describe the mind-set required of businesses that wish to evolve their models of business successfully into the next millennium.

By providing a mix of real-world examples, coupled with logical extensions to the philosophies that have dominated main stream economic theories for the majority of the 20th century - the authors allow us to peak through the curtain - to catch a glimpse of what the world will be like in 50 years time.

Natural Capitalism espouses a vision of a world where long term profit is the driving force behind global strategy, where 'whole system thinking' dominates rather than simplistic compartmentalised agendas.

We have only just discovered the technologies that allow us to assess the impact of the techno-industrial systems which we have grown over the past 150 years. With a little imagination, and a lot of logic Natural Capitalism gently points out the way forward. Toward a trajectory where the (re)application of such systems can construct a new environment, together with the economic opportunities and rewards that come from such an evolution...

This a must read book for all entrepreneurs, businessmen, politicians, researchers, economists, environmentalists, educationalists in fact just about anybody who wishes to live both comfortably, profitably and in harmony during the next century. It argues for an extension to the economic theories that pervade organisational thinking, for a more realistic assessment of the life cycle costs involved in business processes, and above all for a more realistic assessment of the value of natural resources.

This book will help you think. This book will help you live. This book will help you work. This book will help add value to your life... READ IT!

Rating:
Summary: President Clinton praises Natural Capitalism
Review: "It used to be that you couldn't grow a modern economy and get a whole people rich unless you burned a lot of coal and oil. That is not true any more....There ís a new book out I commend to you by Paul Hawken and Amory and Hunter Lovins called Natural Capitalism, and if you read it, you will be convinced that whatever you're doing and however well you're doing it, you could make a lot of money on the side by getting into alternative sources of energy and energy conservation. This is a huge deal." -- President Clinton, at a Democratic National Committee dinner, Oct. 5, 1999