ANALYSIS The contribution of built, human, social and natural capital to quality of life in intentional and unintentional communities ☆ Kenneth Mulder a, * , Robert Costanza a , Jon Erickson b a Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, University of Vermont, 611 Main St., Burlington, VT 05405, USA b Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont, 611 Main St., Burlington, VT 05405, USA ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Received 20 December 2004 Received in revised form 23 September 2005 Accepted 23 September 2005 Available online 16 November 2005 Ecovillages, co-housing communities, and other types of intentional communities (ICs) have proliferated in recent years. There are currently several thousands of these communities worldwide and their numbers are increasing rapidly. We surveyed a subset of these communities to learn more about their characteristics, including their world view or vision, the status of four basic types of capital (built, human, social, and natural), and the quality of life (QoL) they provide for their residents. Survey results indicate that ICs have a better balance between built, human, social, and natural capital than unintentional communities (based on a parallel survey of neighborhoods in Burlington, VT, USA) and that this results in a higher QoL among residents. It is difficult to assess the sustainability of ICs, but the data indicates that within ICs, social capital is substituted for built capital thereby reducing the level of material throughput. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Quality of life survey Intentional communities Social capital Natural capital 1. Introduction As the world grapples with its dwindling natural resources and attempts to reduce some of the pressure on the planet's waste absorption systems, it is clear that humans must forge new paths that attain a high quality of life while consuming fewer resources. The era of profligate consumption will come to an end, and this transition will be both more enjoyable and more feasible if it does not entail a dramatic reduction in people's quality of life. To this end, an ability to successfully replace built capital with social, human, and natural capitals could prove quite important. A recent survey of residents in 30 different intentional communities (ICs) combined with results from a similar survey conducted in Burlington, Vermont, suggests that the alternative living patterns being crafted by these communities may be demonstrating one method for reducing our reliance on built capital and its associated throughput of resources and waste. Our results imply that ICs successfully substitute social capital, and to a lesser extent human and natural capital, for built capital indicating a more sustainable path to a high quality of life can be had. 2. Background Efforts to explain well-being or quality of life have a long history, but there has been an explosion of interest and activity in recent years. Easterlin (2003) identifies two main strands of prevailing theory in psychology and economics. The dominant theory in psychology has been the “set point theory” ☆ Survey data for this study was gathered by students in a course at the University of Vermont in the fall of 2003. A full class list is provided in the acknowledgements. ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 802 656 2900; fax: +1 802 656 2995. E-mail address: Kenneth.Mulder@uvm.edu (K. Mulder). 0921-8009/$ - see front matter © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2005.09.021 ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS 59 (2006) 13 – 23 available at www.sciencedirect.com www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon