Conclusion
Despite all the hyperbole, Natural Capitalism is not a great book and even less of a radical concept. Indeed, the "natural" is wholly unnecessary, for most of its "radical insights" amounts to nothing more than a rediscovery of the fundamental tenets of a market economy. Good capitalist entrepreneurs have always been able to figure out that pollution and waste are both inefficient and expensive. They never needed government officials or business consultants to tell them that you can do well financially and environmentally at the same time. In spite of all this, if Natural Capitalism succeeds in convincing a large segment of the population that economic growth needn’t coincide with environmental degradation, it will have played a useful role—perhaps one that long-time advocates of market economies simply cannot play. One nonetheless hopes that Hawken and the Lovins will one day take a good look at what their ancestors achieved and give some credit to writers who made all of their good points—and most of their bad ones—long before they were born.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Benyus, Janine. 1997. Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.
Bertolini, Gérard. 1978. Rebuts ou ressources? La socio-économie du déchet. Paris: Éditions Ententes.
Bertolini, Gérard. 1990. Le marché des ordures. Économie et gestion des déchets ménagers. Paris: Éditions L’Harmattan.
Bethnal Green Branch Museum. 1875. Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection Illustrating the Utilization of Waste Products. London: George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode for Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.
Boase, Frederic. 1965. Modern English Biography. London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.
Chase, Stuart. 1926. The Tragedy of Waste. New York: The MacMillan Company.
Chase, Stuart. 1931. Waste and the Machine Age. New York: League for Industrial Democracy.
Clemen, Rudolf A. 1927. By-Products in the Packing Industry. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Côté, Raymond P. and Theresa Smolenaars. 1997. "Supporting Pillars for Industrial Ecosystems". Journal of Cleaner Production 5(1/2): 67–74).
Davies, J. Clarence and Jan Mazurek. 1998. Pollution Control in the United States. Evaluating the System. Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future.
DeSilguy, Catherine. 1989. La saga des ordures du Moyen Âge à nos jours. Paris: L’instant.
Desrochers, Pierre. 2000. "Market Processes and the Closing of "Industrial Loops": A Historical Reappraisal". Journal of Industrial Ecology 4 (1): 29–43.
Desrochers, Pierre. Forthcoming. "Regional Development and Inter-Industry Recycling Linkages: Some Historical Perspective". Entrepreneurship and Regional Development.
Edelman, Larry. 1999. "Can Capitalism Go Natural? A Review of Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution". Environmental Law Review 29 (4): 1043–1048.
Environmental Law Institute. 1998. Barriers to Environmental Technology Innovation and Use. Washington, D.C.: Environmental Law Institute.
Gille, Zsuzsa. 2000. "Legacy of Waste of Wasted Legacy? The End of Industrial Ecology in Post-Socialist Hungary". Environmental Politics 9 (1): 203–231.
Hawken, Paul, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins. 1999. Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
Jewkes, John, David Sawers and Richard Stillerman. 1969 [1958]. The Sources of Invention, 2nd edition. London: MacMillan.
Johnson, D. Gale. 2000. "Population, Food, and Knowledge". American Economic Review 90 (1): 1–14.
Kealey, Terence. 1996. The Economic Laws of Scientific Research. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Kershaw, John B.C. 1928. The Recovery and Use of Industrial and Other Waste. London: Benn.
Koller, Theodor 1918 [1902]. The Utilization of Waste Products: A Treatise on the Rational Utilization, Recovery, and Treatment of Waste Products of All Kinds (3rd English edition). London: Scott, Greenwood & Son.
Lomborg, Bjorn. 2001. The Skeptical Environmentalist. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Meiners, Roger E. and Andrew P. Morris (eds.). 2000. The Common Law and the Environment. Rethinking the Statutory Basis for Modern Environmental Law. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, Inc.
Nath, Bhaskar, Luch Hens and David Pimentel. 2000. "Editorial". Environment, Development and Sustainability 1 (1): 1–2.
Ostolenk, Bernhard. 1941. Economic Geography. Chicago: Richard D. Irwin, Inc.
Porter, Michael E. and Claas van der Linde. 1995. "Toward a New Conception of the Environment-Competitiveness Relationship". Journal of Economic Perspective 9 (4): 97–118.
Simmonds, Peter Lund. 1862. Waste Products and Undeveloped Substances: or, Hints for Enterprise in Neglected Fields. London: Robert Hardwicke.
Simmonds, Peter Lund. 1876. Waste Products and Undeveloped Substances: A Synopsis of Progress during the Last Century at Home and Abroad. London: Hardwicke and Bogue.
Simon, Julian. 1995. The Ultimate Resource 2. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Smil, Vaclav. 2000. "Rocky Mountain Visions: A Review Essay". Population and Development Review 26 (1): 163–176.
Talbot, Frederick. 1920. Millions from Waste. Philadelphia: Lippincott & Co.
Worrell, Ernst. 2000. "Editorial". Resources, Conservation and Recycling 28: 1–2.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
He received his Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Montreal and recently completed a two year post-doctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University. His main research interests are environmental and economic development issues and intellectual property. Much of the research leading to this article was completed while the author was a research fellow at the Political Economy Research Center (Bozeman, Montana) in the Summer of 2000.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Desrochers, P. Back to the future: A review essay of paul hawken, amory lovins and L. Hunter Lovins’ Natural capitalism and Bjørn Lomberg’s The skeptical environmentalist . Know Techn Pol 14, 103–113 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12130-001-1007-4
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12130-001-1007-4