Monday, 21 April 2008
Making Capital Improvements to Sustainable Development
I was recently introduced to the concept of the “five capitals” model of sustainable development by Bill Wallace. Bill is a noted author on sustainability and chairs the International Federation of Consulting Engineers Sustainable Development Committee. The five capitals model, developed by a British organization called the Forum for the Future, is made up of natural capital, social capital, human capital, manufactured capital and financial capital.
Natural capital compares natural resources and ecological process to money in the bank, i.e., capital. We can tap this capital and use it to produce goods and services. Thus, it refers to the most basic building blocks of our economy. Social capital is the connections between and within social networks. It is a primary concept in business, economics, political science, sociology and natural resources management. Human capital refers to the skills and technical knowledge embodied in labor. It is many times simply referred to as labor, one of the three factors of production. Infrastructure capital refers to the physical means of production beyond what can be found in nature. It includes all the tools, shelter, dams, roads and improvements that we have made to the natural environment. Financial capital is the money used in business to buy what they need to make the produces and provide services.
The Forum for the Future uses this construct to look at sustainability as it develops partnerships with major corporations to take on the challenge of sustainable enterprises. Its objective is to show that environmentally and socially sustainable businesses can be profitable. In the long term, it believes sustainable practices will be the only way to be profitable. The forum encourages public sector leaders to use sustainable principals for policy decision-making to help deliver a better quality of life.
Is ASCE being a leader in sustainable development? Are we doing enough in this field to challenge our public sector leaders to incorporate sustainability in their policy and decision making?