Sustainability as Opportunity: Canada’s Capital Stocks and Genuine Savings

How can societies meet human needs and nurture economic growth while preserving the natural resources and environmental integrity on which life and economic vitality ultimately depend?

Document Highlights

Building on recent work undertaken by the World Bank, this report applies economic concepts of capital and savings to enhancing understanding of sustainable development. Opportunities may be measured in economic terms through the notion of capital.

Wealth, or capital, may be:

1. manmade (produced assets)
2. gifts of nature (natural resources plus ecosystems)
3. human (skills, knowledge); or
4. social (forms of governance, institutions).

All four interact to generate flow of income, or living standards for people, and all four figure into how societies can sustain or improve their living standards.