natural capitalism n. an economic theory or practice which assigns a financial cost to the use, maintenance, abuse, or depletion of natural resources and ecosystems. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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The term “natural capital” was first used by E.F. Schumacher in his book Small is Beautiful in 1973, and was first used in peer-reviewed literature by Herman Daly and Robert Costanza in Conservation Biology in 1992.
The first use of “natural capitalism” was my talk to the California Academy of Science March 31, 1994, and it was entitled Natural Capitalism.
I used the term extensively in talks from that time until the article called Natural Capitalism was printed in Mother Jones in 1997.
The theory of natural capitalism is pure Herman Daly as was mentioned in my book.
The book Natural Capitalism came out in 1999. By that time, I wasn’t so fond of the term because I think it caused misunderstanding. On cursory reading, people thought it to be a variant of capitalism. It was always meant to be a play on words.
Bob Costanza, who is quoted in the Frenay piece, was on my board at the Natural Step and I discussed the term with him on a number of occasions before the 1996 piece, even to the extent of asking him what he thought of the idea. He did not use the term in the interview. Frenay used it from his talks with me and used Bob’s definition.