Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution

Natural Capitalism:

by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins. Little, Brown & Company, Boston, 1999. Hardcover, 396 pages, $26.95, or free online at

www.natcap.org.

As I was returning to the U.S. from a recent trip to Vancouver,

Natural Capitalism, sticking out of my shoulder bag, caught the attention of the immigration official. If he was looking for a clue that I might be a dangerous radical, my brief explanation apparently set him at ease. Perhaps he should not have been so easily convinced, however, because this book aims to turn our economy inside out.

The brilliant thinking and writing of Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins may be just powerful enough to justify such a threat. In a nutshell,

Natural Capitalism makes the case that companies can be more successful by protecting and restoring the environment than by exploiting it. The book is densely packed with facts and factoids but still manages to leave the impression that there is much more knowledge to be tapped where this came from. (Capitalizing on this impression, the authors now have a busy consulting practice helping companies get with their program.)

To a committed environmentalist, reading

Natural Capitalism is both inspirational and reaffirming. It is critical of “eco-efficiency” as not going far enough (rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic), and yet draws on such small measures extensively as parts of a “value chain” of savings that multiply to result in enormous efficiency gains. At times, the book’s exuberance seems unjustified, and some examples it offers are, perhaps, oversold. The authors acknowledge this tendency in their preface: “If at times we seem to lean more to enthusiasm than reportage, it is because we can see the tremendous array of possibilities for healing the most intransigent problems of our time.”

In spite of—or perhaps because of—this overexuberance,

Natural Capitalism has rightfully become an influential book. While technical, the book also reads easily. You can download it chapter-by-chapter from the Internet, but until you can get one of the electronic paperless books the authors describe, you’ll probably want to buy a copy to make your reading more comfortable.

– Nadav Malin