A Framework for the practical application of the concepts of critical natural capital and strong sustainability
This paper develops a methodology for identifying that natural capital—called critical natural capital (CNC)—the maintenance of which is essential for environmental sustainability. By consideration of the characteristics of natural capital, of the environmental functions that these characteristics enable natural capital to perform and of the importance of these functions to humans and the biosphere, it shows how sustainability standards in respect of these environmental functions may be derived. The difference between the current situation and these standards is termed the sustainability gap. The methodology that emerges from bringing these ideas together into a single analytical framework enables policy makers to identify the extent of current unsustainability, the principal causes of it, the elements and processes of natural capital (the CNC) which need to be maintained or restored to close the sustainability gap and the costs of so doing. The framework should therefore be of use in identifying priorities and policies for moving towards environmental sustainability.
Environmental Sustainability: Universal and Non‐Negotiable
After deploring the mystification of the term sustainability and tendencies to conflate it with society's desiderata, we desegregate three types of sustainability: social, economic, and environmental. After clarifying these three linked and overlapping concepts, and construing them with sustainable development, we distinguish quantitative throughput growth from qualitative development, and mention intergenerational equity and scarcity of natural capital that together lead to the definition of environmental sustainability by the output/input rule, i.e., keep wastes within assimilative capacities; harvest within regenerative capacities of renewable resources; deplete non-renewables at the rate at which renewable substitutes are developed. After distinguishing development from sustainability and from growth, the paper describes the concept of natural capital and uses the concept to present four alternative definitions of environmental sustainability. Next, the paper presents criteria for analyzing environmental sustainability and uses the Ehrlich-Holdren framework in which Population," Pffluence, and Technology are examined separately. The paper then nuances the I = PAT identity and starts to disaggregate the components of sustainability into more dynamic formulations. The final section describes how one large development agency, the World Bank, is endeavoring to incorporate these new principles into its operations.
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