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Amory B. Lovins

Bio: Amory B. Lovins is an academic researcher from Rocky Mountain Institute. The author has contributed to research in topics: Nuclear power & Efficient energy use. The author has an hindex of 27, co-authored 95 publications receiving 6625 citations.


Papers
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Book
01 Jan 1999
TL;DR: Natural capital refers to the earth's natural resources and the ecological systems that provide vital life-support services to society and all living things as mentioned in this paper. But current business practices typically fail to take into account the value of these assets, which is rising with their scarcity.
Abstract: Previous industrial revolutions made people 100 times more productive when low per-capita output was limiting progress in exploiting a seemingly boundless natural world. Today we face a different pattern of scarcity: abundant people and labor-saving machines, but diminishing natural capital. Natural capital refers to the earth’s natural resources and the ecological systems that provide vital life-support services to society and all living things. These services are of immense economic value; some are literally priceless, since they have no known substitutes. Yet current business practices typically fail to take into account the value of these assets—which is rising with their scarcity. As a result, natural capital is being degraded and liquidated by the very wasteful use of resources such as energy, materials, water, fiber, and topsoil. The next industrial revolution, like the previous ones, will be a response to changing patterns of scarcity. It will create upheaval, but more importantly, it will create opportunities. Natural capitalism is a new business model that enables companies to fully realize these opportunities. The journey to natural capitalism involves four major shifts in business practices, all vitally interlinked: • Radically increase the productivity of natural resources. Through fundamental changes in both production design and technology, farsighted companies are developing ways to make natural resources—energy, minerals, water, forests—stretch 5, 10, even 100 times further than they do today. The resulting savings in operational costs, capital investment, and time can help natural capitalists implement the other three principles. • Shift to biologically inspired production models and materials. Natural capitalism seeks not merely to reduce waste but to eliminate the very concept of waste. In closed-loop production systems, modeled on nature’s designs, every output either is returned harmlessly to the ecosystem as a nutrient, like compost, or becomes an input for another manufacturing process. Industrial processes that emulate the benign chemistry of nature reduce dependence on nonrenewable inputs, make possible often phenomenally more efficient production, and can result in elegantly simple products that rival anything man-made. • Move to a “service-and-flow” business model. The business model of traditional manufacturing rests on the sale of goods. In the new model, value is instead delivered as a continuous flow of services—such as providing illumination rather than selling light bulbs. This aligns the interests of providers and customers in ways that reward them for resource productivity. • Reinvest in natural capital. Capital begets more capital; a company that depletes its own capital is eroding the basis Synopsis

1,596 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore basic concepts in energy strategy by outlining and contrasting two energy paths tbat the United States might follow over the next 50 years, long enough for the full implications of the changing energy paradigm to start to emerge.
Abstract: W H E R E are America's formal or de facto energy policies leading us? Where might we choose to go instead? How can we find out? Addressing tbese questions can reveal deeper questions—and a few answers—that are easy to grasp, yet rich in insight and in international relevance. This paper will seek to explore such basic concepts in energy strategy by outlining and contrasting two energy paths tbat the United States might follow over tbe next 50 years—long enough for tbe full implications of cbange to start to emerge. Tbe first path resembles present federal policy and is essentially an extrapolation of tbe recent past. It relies on rapid expansion of centralized high technologies to increase supplies of energy, especially in the form of electricity. The second path combines a prompt and serious commitment to efficient use of energy, rapid development of renewable energy sources matcbed in scale and in energy quality to end-use needs, and special transitional fossil-fuel tecbnologies. This path, a wbole greater than tbe sum of its parts, diverges radically from incremental past practices to pursue long-term goals.

499 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: Natural capitalism will sub-sume traditional industrialism, just as industrialism sub-sumed agrarianism, and the companies that are furthest down the road will have the competitive edge, the authors argue.
Abstract: 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.

473 citations

Book
28 Jun 2017
TL;DR: In this article, Amory B Lovins and Paul Hawken introduce the next industrial revolution and the Next Industrial Revolution Hypercars and Neighbourhoods Waste Not The Making of the World Building Blocks Designing Whole Systems Muda, Service and Flow Capital Gains Filaments of Nature Food for Life Aqueous Solutions Climate - Making Sense and Making Money making markets work Human Capitalism Once Upon a Planet
Abstract: New Introduction by Amory B Lovins and Paul Hawken The Next Industrial Revolution Hypercars and Neighbourhoods Waste Not The Making of the World Building Blocks Designing Whole Systems Muda, Service and Flow Capital Gains Filaments of Nature Food for Life Aqueous Solutions Climate - Making Sense and Making Money making markets work Human Capitalism Once Upon a Planet

453 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that service provision rather than goods is fundamental to economic exchange and argue that the new perspectives are converging to form a new dominant logic for marketing, one in which service provision is fundamental for economic exchange.
Abstract: Marketing inherited a model of exchange from economics, which had a dominant logic based on the exchange of “goods,” which usually are manufactured output The dominant logic focused on tangible resources, embedded value, and transactions Over the past several decades, new perspectives have emerged that have a revised logic focused on intangible resources, the cocreation of value, and relationships The authors believe that the new perspectives are converging to form a new dominant logic for marketing, one in which service provision rather than goods is fundamental to economic exchange The authors explore this evolving logic and the corresponding shift in perspective for marketing scholars, marketing practitioners, and marketing educators

12,760 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
27 Jan 2006-Science
TL;DR: The integration of agroenergy crops and biorefinery manufacturing technologies offers the potential for the development of sustainable biopower and biomaterials that will lead to a new manufacturing paradigm.
Abstract: Biomass represents an abundant carbon-neutral renewable resource for the production of bioenergy and biomaterials, and its enhanced use would address several societal needs. Advances in genetics, biotechnology, process chemistry, and engineering are leading to a new manufacturing concept for converting renewable biomass to valuable fuels and products, generally referred to as the biorefinery. The integration of agroenergy crops and biorefinery manufacturing technologies offers the potential for the development of sustainable biopower and biomaterials that will lead to a new manufacturing paradigm.

5,344 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose an institutional theory of corporate social responsibility consisting of a series of propositions specifying the conditions under which corporations are likely to behave in socially responsible ways, and argue that the relationship between basic economic conditions and corporate behavior is mediated by several institutional conditions: public and private regulation, the presence of nongovernmental and other independent organizations that monitor corporate behaviour, institutionalized norms regarding appropriate corporate behavior, associative behavior among corporations themselves, and organized dialogues among corporations and their stakeholders.
Abstract: I offer an institutional theory of corporate social responsibility consisting of a series of propositions specifying the conditions under which corporations are likely to behave in socially responsible ways. I argue that the relationship between basic economic conditions and corporate behavior is mediated by several institutional conditions: public and private regulation, the presence of nongovernmental and other independent organizations that monitor corporate behavior, institutionalized norms regarding appropriate corporate behavior, associative behavior among corporations themselves, and organized dialogues among corporations and their stakeholders. Concerns about corporate social responsibility have grown significantly during the last two decades. Not only has the issue become commonplace in the business press and among business and political leaders (Buhr & Graf

3,806 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss how the concept of sustainable development has evolved over the past three decades and particularly how it can be applied to the business level and describe the three types of capital relevant within the corporate sustainability: economic, natural and social capital.
Abstract: The article is intended as a contribution to the ongoing conceptual development of corporate sustainability. At the business level sustainability is often equated with eco-efficiency. However, such a reduction misses several important criteria that firms have to satisfy if they want to become truly sustainable. This article discusses how the concept of sustainable development has evolved over the past three decades and particularly how it can be applied to the business level. It then goes on to describe the three types of capital relevant within the concept of corporate sustainability: economic, natural and social capital. From this basis we shall then develop the six criteria managers aiming for corporate sustainability will have to satisfy: eco-efficiency, socio-efficiency, eco-effectiveness, socio-effectiveness, sufficiency and ecological equity. The article ends with a brief outlook towards future research. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment

3,136 citations

01 Jan 2016
TL;DR: This paper critically analyzes the deployment issues of best three proposals considering trade-off between security functions and performance overhead and concludes that none of them is deployable in practical scenario.
Abstract: Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the protocol backing the core routing decisions on the Internet. It maintains a table of IP networks or 'prefixes' which designate network reachability among autonomous systems (AS). Point of concern in BGP is its lack of effective security measures which makes Internet vulnerable to different forms of attacks. Many solutions have been proposed till date to combat BGP security issues but not a single one is deployable in practical scenario. Any security proposal with optimal solution should offer adequate security functions, performance overhead and deployment cost. This paper critically analyzes the deployment issues of best three proposals considering trade-off between security functions and performance overhead.

2,691 citations