Natural capital

Natural capital is a metaphor for minerals, plants and animals of the biosphere, insofar as they are considered as a production factor for the production of oxygen, as water filters, preventers of erosion, carriers of genetic material or other natural benefits.

It is an approach to capture the economic value of the ecosystem, which goes beyond the traditional understanding of non- human life as passive natural resource.

The problem is this metaphor, insofar as it refers to operations that create immediate value as capital, although the concept of major capital Economics expects only vorgetane work in pure form or in combination with floor to capital. Natural capital in this sense, therefore, only the results of natural processes, natural resources. The processes themselves are to be regarded as part of the production factor floor. On the other hand, expect Robert Costanza, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins, Paul Hawken, and other representatives of the natural capital theory " natural benefits" not aware of the production factor land, because they can be seriously disrupted and destroyed by human activities and is thereby destroyed a " capital " of nature. Thus, the natural power was already too low to absorb the consequences of current economics (see Ecological Footprint ).