No one would run a business without accounting for its capital outlays. Yet most companies overlook one major capital component--the value of the earth's ecosystem services. It is a staggering omission; recent calculations place the value of the earth's total ecosystem services--water storage, atmosphere regulation, climate control, and so on--at 33 trillion a year. Not accounting for those costs has led to waste on a grand scale. But now a few farsighted companies are finding powerful business opportunities in conserving resources on a similarly grand scale. They are embarking on a journey toward "natural capitalism, " a journey that comprises four major shifts in business practices. The first stage involves dramatically increasing the productivity of natural resources, stretching them as much as 100 times further than they do today. In the second stage, companies adopt closed-loop production systems that yield no waste or toxicity. The third stage requires a fundamental change of business model--from one of selling products to one of delivering services. For example, a manufacturer would sell lighting services rather than lightbulbs, thus benefitting the seller and customer for developing extremely efficient, durable lightbulbs. The last stage involves reinvesting in natural capital to restore, sustain, and expand the planet's ecosystem. Because natural capitalism is both necessary and profitable, it will sub-sume traditional industrialism, the authors argue, just as industrialism sub-sumed agrarianism. And the companies that are furthest down the road will have the competitive edge.
Lovins et al. (2006) studied this question.