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Preface
 
 Natural Capitalism
as an idea and thesis for a book emerged in 1994, the year after thepublication of 
The Ecology of Commerce
. After meeting with and speaking to differentbusiness, government, and academic institutions in the aftermath of the book'spublication, it became clear to Hawken that industry and government needed an overallbiological and social framework within which the transformation of commerce could beaccomplished and practiced. To that end, articles and papers were written that became thebasis of a book about natural capitalism. A key element of this theory was the idea thatthe economy was shifting from an emphasis on human productivity to a radical increasein resource productivity. This shift would provide more meaningful family-wage jobs, abetter worldwide standard of living to those in need, and a dramatic reduction of humankind's impact upon the environment. So while the context for
 Natural Capitalism
 existed in a theoretical framework, the exposition did not.Contemporaneously, Amory and Hunter Lovins were coming to the same conclusion: thata shared framework was needed that could harness the talent of business to solve theworld's deepest environmental and social problems. Both were writing
Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use
for publication in Germany in 1995. The seniorauthor of 
Factor Four 
, Ernst von Weizsäcker, among Europe's top innovators inenvironmental policy, had teamed up with the Lovinses to pool the experience of theirrespective nonprofit research centers—Wuppertal Institute in Germany and RockyMountain Institute (RMI) in Colorado. The three authors had assembled fifty case studiesof at least quadrupled resource productivity to detail how, across whole economies,people could live twice as well but use half as much material and energy.
Factor Four 
 showed that such striking gains in resource efficiency could be profitable, and thatobstacles to their implementation could be hurdled by combining innovations in businesspractice and in public policy.Both
Factor Four 
and
The Ecology of Commerce
urged the private sector to move to thevanguard of environmental solutions.
Factor Four 
described a creative policy framework that could foster fair and open competition in achieving that success.
The Ecology of Commerce
suggested techniques that when combined with business's unique strengthscould enable it to meet this challenge successfully.Hunter Lovins sent a draft of 
Factor Four 
to Paul Hawken in early 1995. He saw that itwas the exposition that natural capitalism needed if it were to make its theoretical claimscredible and demonstrable. The ideas not only meshed, they were absolutelycomplementary. We agreed to work together toward one book, under the title of 
 NaturalCapitalism
, that would contain both theory and practice. After the work began, wediscovered it wasn't that simple.
Factor Four 
was anecdotal, Europe-oriented (by 1997 ithad also been published in England after being a German bestseller for nearly two years),and written more for policy and environmental activists than for business practitioners. Itneeded not adaptation but complete rewriting. Further, the examples offered concentratedmainly on efficiency and did not take fully into account the need for the restoration of natural caital nor for several other imortant elements of natural caitalism that o far
 
beyond mere resource efficiency. Fortunately, Rocky Mountain Institute's researchers inbuildings, industry, water, agriculture, forestry, and vehicles had been compilinginformation on ways to turn the expanding returns of advanced resource productivity intoa common business practice. Cultural shifts within the business community had started toaccelerate the pace of change, providing practical examples even more compelling thanthose available in 1995. A wider and more ambitious agenda was becoming possible andprofitable.As we sought to make the American public aware of an emerging resource productivityrevolution, we realized that there was a larger message. Eco-efficiency, an increasinglypopular concept used by business to describe incremental improvements in materials useand environmental impact, is only one small part of a richer and more complex web of ideas and solutions. Without a fundamental rethinking of the structure and the rewardsystem of commerce, narrowly focused eco-efficiency could be a disaster for theenvironment by overwhelming resource savings with even larger growth in theproduction of the wrong products, produced by the wrong processes, from the wrongmaterials, in the wrong place, at the wrong scale, and delivered using the wrong businessmodels. With so many wrongs outweighing one right, more efficient production by itself could become not the servant but the enemy of a durable economy. Reconcilingecological with economic goals requires not just eco-efficiency alone, but also threeadditional principles, all interdependent and mutually reinforcing. Only that combinationof all four principles can yield the full benefits and the logical consistency of naturalcapitalism.Hundreds of exciting examples emerged from rapidly evolving business experience inmany sectors: transportation and land use, buildings and real estate, industry andmaterials, forests, food, water. But as we sifted and distilled those new business cases, werealized that the conventional wisdom is mistaken in seeing priorities in economic,environmental, and social policy as competing. The best solutions are based not ontradeoffs or "balance" between these objectives but on design integration achieving all of them together—at every level, from technical devices to production systems tocompanies to economic sectors to entire cities and societies. This book tells that story of design integration, unfolding through the interaction of successive topical chapters andinterleaved with explanations of the design concepts they reveal.The story is neither simple nor complete. Each of these ideas deserves far greaterexplanation than space allows. Its conclusion is tantalizing if not yet wholly clear.Although it is a book abounding in solutions, it is not about "fixes." Nor is it a how-tomanual. It is a portrayal of opportunities that if captured will lead to no less than atransformation of commerce and of all societal institutions. Natural capitalism maps thegeneral direction of a journey that requires overturning long-held assumptions, evenquestioning what we value and how we are to live. Yet the early stages in the decades-long odyssey are turning out to release extraordinary benefits. Among these are whatbusiness innovator Peter Senge calls "hidden reserves within the enterprise"—"lostenergy," trapped in stale employee and customer relationships, that can be channeled intosuccess for both toda's shareholders and future enerations. All three of us have
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