Natural Capitalism

These tools include institutional innovations that can create new markets in avoided resource depletion and abated pollution, maximize competition in saving resources, and convert the cost of a sulfur tax or a carbon-trading price into profits realized from the sale and use of efficient technologies.

Such just-in-time manufacturing would eliminate inventory, its carrying and selling costs, and the discounts and rebates needed to move premade stock that’s mismatched to current demand.

the present industrial system

typical large sewage-treatment plants do gain some economies of scale, they also gain bigger diseconomies because they must pay for the sewer network to collect wastes from a larger area.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system,17which provides a national standard for evaluating and comparing green building performance.

Because products would be returned to the manufacturer for continuous repair, reuse, and remanufacturing, Stahel called the process “cradle-to-cradle.” 19

problems can’t be solved within the mind-set that created them,

deficiency in business operations cannot be corrected simply by assigning monetary values to natural capital, for three reasons. First, many of the services we receive from living systems have no known substitutes at any price;

people are remarkably consistent in what kind of future they envision for their children and grandchildren. The potential outcome of natural capitalism and sustainability