ECOLOGICAL

ECONOMICS
ELSEVIER Ecological Economics 15 (1995) 157-164

Commentary

Ecology, sustainability, and environment as capital

M.J. Harte *
Department of Geography, The University of Waikato, Te Whare W-~nanga o Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
Received 12 January 1995; accepted 21 June 1995

Abstract

The idea of environment as capital has found widespread support in both the economic and ecological literature. It is
often suggested in a related sustainability literature that natural capital should remain intact if possible. The popularity of this
approach to exploring the human-environment relationship is due, in part, to the way it is seemingly legitimised by
ecological theory and practice. This legitimation is important for emerging areas of human-environment study, such as
ecological economics, because ecology and other natural sciences have often dismissed economic constructions of the
environment. However, a closer examination of the state of contemporary ecology suggests that there are problems with an
ecological legitimation of the "environment as capital approach." First, ecology itself is a troubled discipline and its ability
to provide a comprehensive theory of human-environment interactions is limited. Second, emerging ecological discourse
tends to undermine the ecological rationale for many natural-capital-related resource management recommendations. This
does not mean that the environment as capital concept is without considerable heuristic power. It does imply, however, a
need to return to a social construction of the environment in which different environmental possibilities are valued in terms
of their potential contribution to human well-being.

Keywords: Natural capital; Sustainability; Ecology

I. Introduction many new areas of interdisciplinary research. One

Economists and ecologists are paying increasing
attention to the influence that the biosphere has on
the magnitude and nature of economic development,
and, perhaps more significantly, to the effect that
humans have on the evolutionary potential of natural
systems. This broadening of perspectives has led to
" Current address: Strategic Policy Group, Ministry for the
Environment, PO Box 10362, Wellington, New Zealand. Tel.:
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such area, pervasive within the ecological economics
literature, is the notion of the environment as capital.
The environment as capital concept has become
widely adopted because it is both simple and appeal-
ing. Capital can be defined broadly as a " s t o c k that
yields a flow of valuable goods and services into the
future" (Costanza and Daly, 1992, p. 38). Natural
capital has many attributes including the composi-
tional, structural, and functional components of
ecosystems. It is found in areas of study such as
sustainable development (Pearce and Turner, 1990;
Victor, 1991; Costanza and Daly, 1992; Jansson et
al., 1994), ecological integrity (Kay, 1991a, b; Karr,
1992; W o o d l e y et al., 1993; Grumbine, 1994; Meffe

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SSDI 0921-8009(95)00043-7
158 M.J. Harte / Ecological Economics 15 (1995) 157-164
and Carroll, 1994) and ecosystem health (Norton,
1991; Costanza et al., 1992).
It is also possible to view the environment-as-
capital approach as a metaphorical or conceptual
device used within the economic literature to engage
a complex ecological discourse. This claim is not
meant to denigrate its use withi n positive economics.
It can be argued that ecosystems are far too complex,
exhibiting complex and dynamic interactions at mul-
tiple spatial and temporal scales, for economists (or
ecologists for that matter) to effectively model or
comprehensively understand. Add a mosaic of hu-
man cultural and economic systems and the problem
of effective representation of human-environment
relationships becomes even more complex.
To help conceptualise this complex problem,
economists have, as in many disciplines, extended a
pervasive indigenous concept (in this case "capital")
to facilitate a dialogue with ecology. However, the
idea can be advanced that the explicit, or often
implicit, ecological privilege claimed for policy pre-
scriptions based on the environment-as-capital ap-
proach is at best limited and at worst discredited by
contemporary developments within ecology. This di-
chotomy serves to demonstrate the care that must be
taken when developing conceptual devices for pre-
scriptive purposes, and the utility of deconstructing
these devices once in place.
2. The concept of natural capital
The idea of environment as capital is not new.
Similar ideas and themes c a n be identified in the
writings of the physiocrats, classical economists, and
some neoclassical economists. However, the recent
emergence of the discipline of ecological economics
(Costanza, 1989, 1991a, b; Klaassen and Opschoor,
1991) has generated a particularly vigorous discourse
about the contribution of natural capital to human
well-being.
An enviro.nment-as-capital perspective recognises
that natural resources perform many welfare-related
functions (Barbier, 1989). Economic progress and
human development are seen to be dependent on
both ecological processes and the sufficiency of po-
tentially scarce resources. The environmental stocks
that provide environmental goods and services are
natural capital, and the flows of goods and services
are natural income (El Serafy, 1989, 1991; Pearce
and Turner, 1990; Costanza and Daly, 1992).
Two broad types of natural capital can be distin-
guished (El Serafy, 1991; Costanza and Daly, 1992).
The first type is renewable natural capital. Renew-
able natural capital can be harvested to yield ecosys-
tem goods and can also yield a flow of services
when left in place. The major characteristic of re-
newable natural capital is a substantial regenerative
capacity (the length of time it takes one unit of
natural capital to reproduce itself) based on the input
of solar energy. Continued exploitation in excess of
natural regeneration rates can turn potentially renew-
able resources into non-renewable resources.
The second type of natural capital is non-renew-
able natural capital. Fossil fuels and mineral re-
sources are the most commonly encountered exam-
ples. Non-renewable natural capital has a regenera-
tive capacity of zero or close to zero. E1 Serafy
(1989) suggests that renewable natural capital is
subject to entropic depreciation while non-renewable
natural capital is subject to liquidation. Costanza and
Daly (1992) further suggest that non-renewable natu-
ral capital does not generally yield a service until
extracted.
3. Sustainability and maintaining natural capital
Costanza (1991b, p. 342) defines sustainability as
" . . . t h e amount of consumption that can be sus-
tained indefinitely without degrading capital
stocks . . . . " Other authors have also explored the
merits of using constraints on the size and composi-
tion of capital stocks as necessary conditions for
achieving sustainability (see, for example, Pearce,
1988, 1993; Pearce and Turner, 1990; Victor, 1991;
Costanza and Daly, 1992; Mikesell, 1992; Turner et
al., 1993). Pearce (1988), for example, suggests an
approach in which sustainable development is char-
acterised by economic change subject to the "con-
stancy" of the natural capital stock. The stock of
environmental assets is held constant while the econ-
omy is allowed to advance whatever social goals are
deemed appropriate. The idea of a constant natural
 MJ. Harte /Ecological Economics 15 (1995) 157-164
capital stock has become particularly popular as it
apparently accommodates many of the con6erns of
advocates of sustainable development including: eq-
uity between generations (Pearce and Turner, 1990;
Penn, 1990); equity within a generation (Pearce and
Turner, 1990); economic and ecological resilience to
external shocks and internal stress (Conway and
Barbier, 1988); and uncertainty about functions and
values of natural environments in social systems
(Tisdell, 1988).
4. Measuring natural capital
A sustainability-related requirement to maintain
natural capital can be interpreted in several ways
(Pearce et al., 1989; Pearce and Turner, 1990; Vic-
tor, 1991). First, resource constancy can be inter-
preted as requiring that the physical quantity of a
resource does not change. The aggregation of incom-
mensurate physical units represents a major problem
with this approach. If pecuniary values could be
assigned to all natural resource stocks, the initial
requirement could be rephrased in terms of a con-
stant real value of the stock of natural assets. A
second interpretation is that the unit value of the
services of natural capital, or price, of natural re-
sources can be kept constant in real terms. As long
as prices reflect absolute scarcity, constant real prices
will translate to a constant natural capital stock.
Third, the value of resource flows from the natural
capital stock can be kept constant. In this instance
quantity can decline as long as prices increase, thus
keeping value constant.
These differences in interpretation reflect a split
in the economic-ecological literature over strong and
weak interpretations of sustainability (Barbier et al.,
1990; Turner et al., 1993; Beckerman, 1994; Martin,
1994). Weak interpretations allow for a high degree
of substitution between natural and manufactured
capital. Substitution of manufactured capital for nat-
ural capital is held to be acceptable as long as a
resource stock is not depleted below a critical mini-
mum (Pearce and Turner, 1990) a n d / o r irreversibili-
ties are not involved (Nijkamp and Soeteman, 1988).
Others have argued that weak definitions of sustain-
ability are redundant and can be achieved using
159
conventional approaches to welfare economics based
on optimality and efficiency (Little and Mirrlees,
1990; Beckerman, 1994).
Strong interpretations of sustainability suggest that
natural and manufactured capital are substitutes with
only limited opportunities for substitution. In other
words, the elasticity of substitution between manu-
factured capital and natural capital is not high (Pearce
and Turner, 1990). Natural capital is needed directly,
or in embodied form, to make manufactured capital.
The existence of biophysical laws, such as the First
Law of Thermodynamics, demonstrates that natural
resources must be consumed to make anything. The
substitution of manufactured capital for natural capi-
tal is therefore limited by the extent to which in-
creases in manufactured capital require natural capi-
tal inputs. Natural capital also fulfills other economic
and environmental functions, including basic life
support, than just the provision of inputs to the
production process. Manufactured capital lacks this
diversity of function. Such diversity adds resilience
to systems which in turn acts as a mechanism to
protect against shock and stress (Pearce et al., 1989).
The possibilities for the substitution of manufactured
capital for natural capital are thus more restricted
than indicated by conventional capital theory.
Whether or not a strong or weak interpretation of
sustainability is adopted, maintaining non-renewable
natural capital remains a difficult problem to resolve
(Costanza and Daly, 1992; Mikesell, 1994). It is
impossible to use, yet maintain a constant stock of a
non-renewable resource (unless a constant value cri-
terion is used to measure the stock). This problem
can be partially resolved by suggesting that it is
possible to exploit non-renewable resources in a
quasi-sustainable manner by limiting their rate of
depletion to the rate of development of renewable
substitutes (Daly, 1990; Costanza and Daly, 1992).
This assumes a greater degree of substitution be-
tween the components of natural capital than be-
tween natural and manufactured capital.
A preoccupation with whether natural capital and
sustainability should be viewed from a weak or
strong sustainability perspective may be self-defeat-
ing, however. Such debates can consume passions
and energies better directed toward more construc-
tive commentary and analysis. As is often the case,
the most fruitful path to follow probably lies some-
160 M.J. Harte /Ecological Economics 15 (1995) 157-164
where between the extremes. We should accept that
it is often impractical and perhaps undesirable to
hold natural capital intact in its entirety, but it is also
counter to the idea of sustainability to bequeath a
stock of natural capital to future generations that is
incapable of yielding sufficient resource flows (i.e.,
" i n c o m e " ) to fulfill their potential needs and aspira-
tions. Determining the productivity of natural capital
and any potential for its substitution is perhaps a
question to ask equally of ecologists as economists,
but, as we shall see, ecologists may also have trouble
providing an answer.
5. Ecology and natural capital
Ultimately, the practice of sustainability requires
baseline environmental information derived from
ecological theory and practice. Unfortunately, while
most normative works adopting a natural capital
approach to sustainability treat the heterogeneity and
complementarity of environmental systems seriously,
they treat it too simplistically. This is often in con-
trast to the complex and elegant economic models
contained within the same works. Little in contempo-
rary theoretical or empirical ecology provides a sci-
entific basis for the notion of a constant resource
stock.
Two main themes can be found in the ecological
literature to support this assertion. First, ecology
itself is a troubled discipline and in a limited position
to provide comprehensive policy advice to environ-
mental managers and economists seeking ecological
enlightenment. Its scientific and epistemological
foundations have been seriously eroded and some
have claimed the death of the old ecology and the
birth of a new ecology (see, for related discussions,
Sagoff, 1985; Mclntosh, 1987; Botkin, 1990; Peters,
1991; Pickett et al., 1992; Caldwell and Shrader-
Frechette, 1993; Demeritt, 1994; Shrader-Frechette
and McCoy, 1994; Zimmerer, 1994). Second, emerg-
ing ecological discourse, both theoretical and empiri-
cal, tends to undermine the ecological rationale for
maintaining a constant stock of natural capital and
other similar management recommendations, and in-
dicates a need to return to a more pluralistic ap-
proach for foundational principles.
6. Limits and revisions in ecological science
Contemporary debate in ecology follows many
long-standing institutional, methodological, and
philosophical differences. Demeritt (1994, p. 23)
claims that these differences were held together in
the 1960s and 1970s by " a set of hegemonic ideas
about the science of ecology and the nature it stud-
ied." Ecology was seen as a nomothetic science
whose purpose was to produce broad, context-inde-
pendent generalisations about nature. A shared vo-
cabulary using such concepts of ecosystem and equi-
librium bridged internal differences between ecologi-
cal factions and created a discourse that quickly
spread outside the discipline. The widespread use of
mathematics by both systems theorists and reduction-
ist mathematical modellers also helped camouflage
fundamental differences in explanations of basic
concepts and aided the re-affirmation of ecology as a
true science.
The claim that ecology is a nomothetic discipline
has been severely eroded in recent times, however.
Increasing evidence from empirical ecologists has
suggested that community ecology is anything but
context-independent. Consequently, ecology has nei-
ther unambiguous definitions of basic concepts such
as species, niche, or ecosystem, nor a testable gen-
eral theory capable of providing predictive or pre-
scriptive guidance to environmental managers and
analysts (Caldwell and Shrader-Frechette, 1993;
Shrader-Frechette and McCoy, 1993, 1994; De-
meritt, 1994; Zimmerer, 1994). The problem for
ecological economists is that we can no longer rely
on the authority of ecology to legitimise normative
use of concepts such as natural capital. Two authors
in particular--Peters (1991) and Sagoff (1985)--are
particularly critical of the contribution that ecology
is making to environmental policy and practice.
Peters (1991) argues that ecology is a " w e a k
science" (p. 10). His main arguments to support this
position are that: ecologists confuse predictive theo-
ries with non-predictive constructs; ecology is failing
to solve the environmental problems it should be
able to solve; many theories in ecology are tautologi-
cal; and many central ecological concepts are impre-
cise and incapable of being used in environmental
policy and practice. Sagoff's criticism (Sagoff, 1985)
is more fundamental and involves an almost com-
 M.J. Harte / Ecological Economics 15 (1995) 157-164
plete rejection of ecology as a basis for resource
management since its foundations are so uncertain.
The answer, according to Sagoff, is that ecologists
ought to adopt ethical, cultural, and aesthetic argu-
ments to determine how to manage the environment.
While accepting there are significant conceptual
and methodological problems faced by contemporary
ecology, a number of authors strongly believe it can
provide a scientific foundation for environmental
management (and, by association, ecological eco-
nomics). Shrader-Frechette and McCoy (1994, p.
294) write: " W e believe that general ecological
theories do have significant heuristic power . . . . and
that, in particular, natural-history information has
much to contribute to practical problem solving in
conservation and preservation." Ecology now has
" . . . a greater respect for description and data col-
lection, a more humble approach to ecological com-
plexity, and a renewed scepticism towards mathemat-
ical models and abstract theories" (Demeritt, 1994,
p. 24).
Emerging concepts in ecology have begun to
recreate a positive basis for environmental manage-
ment. However, this contribution is based on expla-
nations of natural history that are specific to particu-
lar temporal and spatial contexts and are constructed
from the bottom up. The focus of such ecology is the
underlying micro-structures of the phenomenon be-
ing explained. This orientation is contrary to the
meta-ecology required by the ecological-economic
community to legitimise their theoretical constructs.
Moreover, new theoretical developments in ecology,
arising in part to explain observed ecological phe-
nomena, present further problems for the practice of
ecological economics. These theories highlight dise-
quilibria, instability, and chaotic fluctuations in bio-
physical environments, blunt the distinction between
that created by nature and that created by humans,
and at the very least demonstrate a need to re-ex-
amine our conceptualisation of the distinctions and
links between ecology and economy.
7. New theories in ecology
Many economists presuppose that their normative
conclusions gain support from confirmed ecological
161
theories and laws. As suggested above, however, this
assumption is often unjustified. For example, the
notion that a stock of natural capital can be held
constant (in the strong sustainability variant at least)
only has legitimacy if the idea that natural ecosys-
tems evolve towards homeostasis, stability, or some
equilibrium can be confirmed.
Traditional "equilibrium" ecology focuses on the
stable balance of ecological systems (for critical
discussion of this concept, see Kay, 1991a, b; Hobbs
and Huenneke, 1992; Pickett et al., 1992; Caldwell
and Shrader-Frechette, 1993). At its simplest, the
equilibrium paradigm suggests that ecological sys-
tems can be conceptualised as functionally and struc-
turally complete, maintaining themselves in their
original state in the absence of catastrophic change
(Pickett et al., 1992).
The use of equilibrium-based ecological theories
has three important implications for sustainability-re-
lated management practice. First, they give rise to
the belief that stocks of natural capital have the
potential to be managed for sustainablility since it is
implicitly assumed that the systems contained in
these stocks are functionally and structurally com-
plete. Second, it is often assumed that natural capital
will continue to maintain itself if human develop-
ment remains within the constraints imposed by the
biosphere. Similarly, if existing development ex-
ceeds these constraints, then reducing the magnitude
of human disruption will once again enable ecologi-
cal systems to return to their previous states. Sustain-
ability from this perspective is articulated as an
anthropocentric problem to be resolved by the man-
agement of the resource-economy interrelationship.
Third, if systems tend toward stability, research need
only be concerned with the outcome of ecological
processes and interactions rather than the inherent
characteristics of the interactions and processes
themselves (Kay, 1991a, b; Pickett et al., 1992).
However, a lack of empirical evidence supporting
the equilibrium paradigm has resulted in a question-
ing of the ontological assumptions behind stability
research in ecology (Kay, 1991a, b; Pickett et al.,
1992; Walker, 1992). Most damaging to
equilibrium-stability theories has been the recogni-
tion that ecological relationships are spatially and
temporally contingent and not homogeneous (see,
among others, Mclntosh, 1987; Allen and Starr, 1988;
162 MJ. Harte / Ecological Economics 15 (1995) 157-164
Turner, 1989; Noss, 1990). Also recognised by
emerging ecological perspectives is the open nature
of natural systems. This suggests that studies of
ecosystem attributes must be cognisant of the wider
context of which the ecosystem is part. Perhaps more
importantly, system processes, interactions and over-
all ecological context are emphasised rather than the
final state produced by these processes (Kay, 1991a,
b; Pickett et al., 1992; Walker, 1992).
Equilibrium-stability theories are still used exten-
sively to guide environmental management practice
(Kay, 1991a, b; Noss, 1990, 1992; Pickett et al.,
1992). But because the confirmation of general equi-
librium in ecological systems now seems unlikely,
economists will have to look elsewhere in ecology or
to other fields of study to legitimize their central
postulates. In some circumstances present recom-
mendations for environmental management will have
to be abandoned completely.
Managing the environment on the basis of new
ecological theories implies a need for greater empha-
sis on ecological processes and contexts than is
traditionally acknowledged in economic-ecological
literature. Picket et al. (1992) suggest that environ-
mental analysts and policy makers must be aware of:
(i) controlling system processes; (ii) the context of
system processes; (iii) the historical range of system
perturbations; (iv) the evolutionary and physiological
limits of system components; and (v) the characteris-
tics and effects of short- and long-term phenomena.
Contemporary ecological theories need not neces-
sarily contradict all economic constructions of the
human--environment interface, however. Evolving
perspectives have given rise to, or allowed, the emer-
gence of new approaches to understanding and re-
solving pervasive environmental problems. For ex-
ample, Kay (1991a, p. 24), discussing ecological
integrity (see also Kay, 1991b; Karr, 1992; Woodley
et al., 1993; Grumbine, 1994; Westra, 1994), writes:
"Ecosystems are not static. Their organisation is
often changing, both in the short-term and in an
evolutionary sense. Furthermore any loss in organisa-
tion is often gradual. Thus it is not possible to
identify a single organisational state of the system
that corresponds to integrity. Instead there is a range
of states for which the ecosystem is considered to
have integrity." In this context "integrity" refers to
the ability of living systems to maintain their self-
organising ability when subject to changing environ-
mental conditions.
8. Implications for sustainability-related research
Embracing a more dynamic view of natural capi-
tal invites some important observations for the prac-
tice of sustainability and ecological economics. In
order to regain ontological privilege, it seems that
discussions of natural capital must have an anthro-
pocentric component which incorporates human
preferences for various ecosystem states. Without
this anthropocentric dimension, economists cannot
claim that any one ecological state is superior to
another because their recommendations are not
clearly supported by ecological theory and practice.
This is not to suggest that the present status accorded
ecological theory and practice need diminish. Rather,
their role changes from legitimizing ecological eco-
nomic discourse to informing it.
It can be suggested that human societies and
cultures have long demonstrated preference for some
compositional, structural, and functional attributes of
ecosystems over others. Often people are willing to
accept some degradation of ecosystems to allow
others to expand (for example, the historic conver-
sion of forests to pastures and crop-land). It is there-
fore possible to suggest that collective social prefer-
ences regarding desirable system attributes and their
contribution to human well-being should be given a
weighting at least comparable to environmental con-
straints when describing the ecological-economic di-
mensions of development.
Human value systems, and the cultural processes
giving rise to environmental preferences, need to be
better integrated within the study of ecological and
economic systems. Researchers within mainstream
disciplines are often ill-equipped for this task. How-
ever, the inflexibility of both traditional ecology and
economics may hinder the crossover of concepts
required for this integration. It is possible that alter-
natives to ecological legitimations of normative rec-
ommendations will be found within a broader ontol-
ogy for both economics and ecology, one that is
largely devoid of meta-theories, but rich in spatially
and temporally contingent heuristic devices that in-
form disciplinary practice.
 M.J. Harte /Ecological Economics 15 (1995) 157-164
9. Conclusion
While natural capital is an interesting theoretical
construct, its translation into n o r m a t i v e sustainabil-
ity-related r e c o m m e n d a t i o n s is problematic because
it is difficult to find legitimizing support from w i t h i n
theoretical or empirical ecology. This does not m e a n
that the concept of natural capital need be rejected
for n o r m a t i v e purposes, nor does it m e a n that there
are not ecological limits to h u m a n development.
W h a t it does m e a n is that we m a y have to look more
to the social rather than the natural sciences to give
such concepts m e a n i n g .
For example, the latter part of this paper has
argued that one w a y to give the idea of natural
capital greater relevance for sustainability research is
to relate it to h u m a n preferences for different ecosys-
tem states. These preferences are formed w i t h i n the
context of prevailing social, e c o n o m i c , and cultural
constructs. Ethical considerations regarding the
w e l l - b e i n g of future generations are also associated
with these preferences.
In the end, no matter how we view concepts like
sustainability and natural capital, it seems clear that
ecology must m a i n t a i n a central role in their practi-
cal application. Nevertheless, e c o n o m i s t s and re-
source m a n a g e r s c a n n o t simply a s s u m e that their
theories and applied frameworks have an ontological
privilege derived from ecology. All c o n c e r n e d with
the study of h u m a n - e n v i r o n m e n t interactions need
to be aware that sustainability and natural capital are
spatially and temporally contingent, and be wary of
a p p l y i n g inappropriate methods of study a n d / o r pol-
icy prescriptions derived from other economic, cul-
tural, and ecological contexts. It m a y be more appro-
priate to set aside our existing theoretical crutches
and reach for more flexible heuristic devices
g r o u n d e d within a broader world view.
Acknowledgements
I w o u l d like to thank Larry Berg, Ralph Chap-
man, and M u n r o Morad for v a l u a b l e c o m m e n t s on
earlier drafts of this paper. The views expressed in
this paper are m y o w n and do not necessarily reflect
those of the Ministry for the E n v i r o n m e n t .
163
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