The Five Capitals
Projects and ventures have a common range of resource requirements and a high degree of connected relevance. Their construction, implementation and operation are best served by applying a ‘fractal and systemic approach’ with regard to ethos, modelling and application.
Each of these resources requires a specific approach to procurement and supply, along with its own definitions and paradigm in a sustainability context. The common resource requirements can be recognised as follows:
- Human Capital -
- Development of management teams
- Qualified project teams
- Relevant industry collaboration
People – appropriately engaging with skilled, scalable and committed people solutions, exchanging value on an equitable basis without suffering unnecessary overhead.
- Financial Capital -
- Structuring of ventures and projects
- Seeding and further funding rounds for ventures and projects
- Capitalisation for major projects
Money – providing access to all potential sources of financial capital through our collaborative networks of investors and direct contracts with financial institutions and corporations.
- Physical Capital -
- Definition of a new paradigm for resource management
- Working with collaborative groups to establish an accounting basis
- Generating integrated supply chain / value chain solutions to enable fully integrated resource management
Materials – working with key industry organisations to establish new methods and access to material resources, ranging from source to utilisation, to retention or re-integration.
- Knowledge Capital -
- Creating a context for global and local trends and markets through continuous research and monitoring
- Provision of ‘actionable intelligence’ for ventures and projects
Know-how – creation of internal and outsourced capabilities for context building, collaborative intelligence and competitive advantage.
These form four of the five elements of a ‘Five-Capitals Framework’ and the types of capital provided by Five Capitals to projects and ventures. The fifth form of ‘capital’ is:
- Social Capital’. Generating community – or facilitating the enhancement of social capital is one of the intended outcomes of the application of the first four capitals and is the primary focus of our sister company - Omni Worldview Ltd - and delivered through social enterprise and communications vehicles.
