such capital are many and include marriage and family relationships, religious
organizations, philanthropical and service groups, and many other platforms that
individuals might use to establish relationships with the larger community that
contribute to the formation of civil society.Natural capitalis the entirety of the
naturally occurring systems that provide support to all forms of life on the planet.
Any and all ecosystems are the basic components of natural capital, which not
only provide natural resources for use by humanity, but also are the “means of
production” for the products of the global “natural economy,” commodities like
air, pure water, productive soils, etc. The system of natural capital functions as a
whole, is deeply integrated and interdependent, and is dependent on diversity to
maintain its value.
The notion of sustainable development emphasizes the valuation and preserva-
tion of the three types of capital, and seeks to integrate this approach through
modification of lifestyles, cultural values, and activities. Protecting and conserving
the natural environment is obviously part of maintaining natural capital, but sus-
tainable activities that contribute to this objective also may contribute to the pres-
ervation of one or both of the remaining forms of capital. For example, recycling
of paper, plastic, aluminum, and other materials clearly is a means of protecting
natural capital—by recycling paper, less wood is required to manufacture new
paper products, meaning that fewer trees must be cut to provide wood pulp, a basic
ingredient of paper production. But recycling paper products also contributes to
the preservation of economic capital, because it means energy will be saved by
avoiding the harvesting of additional trees, fewer pulp mills will be required to
process trees (which saves not only the economic capital of energy and construc-
tion costs, but makes another contribution to natural capital by lowering levels of
air and water pollution), and fewer vehicles will be manufactured for transport.
Recycling also benefits the accumulation of social capital, because civic groups
(local Scout troops, high school ecology clubs, religious organizations) may
“adopt” a local recycling drop-off site, thereby constructing social support net-
works and encouraging the community at large to engage in the process, which
may lead to additional accumulation of forms of social capital. In this manner
the practice of sustainable development, according to its supporters, moves
humanity toward a more balanced, measured means of development.
Those who criticize the sustainable development approach find weaknesses in
the way the philosophy is presented and structured, and believe that economic
and social policy cannot be developed on the basis of a philosophy that remains
vague and, to some critics, based on a utopian vision of economic motivation.
According to this view, sustainable development is too reliant on altruistic behav-
iors that may be fashionable and affordable in affluent countries where economic
standards are high and basic needs are easily and readily satisfied, but are not334 Sustainable Development