Natural Capitalism Solutions is recognized internationally for its work in the field of sustainability. Formed by Hunter Lovins, co-author of the acclaimed book
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, Natural Capitalism Solutions is led by Lovins, who has over 40 years experience in business, sustainability, and change management.
Together with their network of best in class sustainability professionals, the Natural Capitalism staff has an impressive record in developing innovative and practical ways to increase efficiency and environmental practices, as well as economic sustainability, for a long list of government and corporate clients.
Natural Capitalism Solutions, a 501(c)3 non-profit, was founded by Hunter Lovins and David Elliot in 2002 after Hunter left Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), which she cofounded 20 years earlier. Hunter wanted to establish an organization that collaborated with like-minded experts to implement the principles of Natural Capitalism. Over the years, the organization has remained small, collaborative, and successful in educating and implementing genuine sustainability.
As a non-profit, they are guided by their mission and founding principles and their projects focus on education, consulting, and maintaining a free resource library.
Principles
The organization is based on the principles presented in the acclaimed book
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, co-authored by the organization’s leader Hunter Lovins. Natural Capitalism Solutions has transformed the original Natural Capitalism Principles, into a leading whole-system sustainability framework. Since the book’s publication in 1999, Hunter and her colleagues have helped companies and communities use these principles to capture the economic advantages of sustainability. The principles reduce capital investment and operating costs, drive profitability, and generate market leadership advantages.
The principles used by Natural Capitalism Solutions are:
1. Buy time by using resources dramatically more productively.
This slows resource depletion, lessens pollution, and increases employment in meaningful jobs. It lowers costs for business and society, halts the degradation of the biosphere, makes it more profitable to employ people, and preserves vital living systems and social cohesion.
2. Redesign industrial processes and the delivery of products and services to do business as nature does, using such approaches as
biomimicry and
cradle to cradle.
This approach enables a wide array of materials to be produced with sunlight using processes that emulate nature’s genius. It emphasizes
Walter Stahel’s concept of the circular economy and cradle to cradle manufacturing in which waste is eliminated, materials are reused, and products are remanufactured.
3. Manage all institutions to be regenerative of natural and human capital.
Such approaches implement the concept of
ecological economics to create sustainable prosperity “improving human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risk an ecological scarcities.” This supports the ability to produce more wealth in intact communities with abundant ecosystem services and natural resources.
