Natural capital consists of air quality, water quality and quantity, soil quality and quantity, biodiversity, landscape, and ecological knowledge. A healthy ecosystem with multiple community benefits is critical to community sustainability. Peters et al. show how the Regional Agriculture and Natural Resources Sustainable Development Partnerships build social capital to enhance natural capital and how the public work resulting from social capital enhances financial, built, and human capital. Financial capital is important for sustainability because it allows for the creation of built capital. Built capital includes such things as barns, sewer systems, factories, housing, farm machinery, and chemical inputs.
Financial capital is sustainable when localities have an appropriately diverse and healthy economy.
Kriz et al. present an important mechanism of using social capital to generate equity financial capital to increase the business sustainability of rural Minnesota. Stone et al. demonstrate the importance of social capital in impacting positively community human capital and financial capital through youth run enterprises. Working toward community resiliency and sustainability requires a collective vision of the future. Peters et al. explain how the Sustainable Development Partnerships increase and sharpen a vision of sustainability. By providing a venue in which all citizens can participate, social capital can enhance all forms of capital in Minnesota communities.