I also went to Websters. It reminded me that the root of the words economic and ecology both come from oikos - home. We are trying to move the concept of home from the limits of our neighborhoods, nations, whatever, from only human interactions to include that of the natural world. It appears to me that it is perfectly acceptable in economic theory to have a moral or ethical aspect that goes beyond a social science analysis through normative economics. Since we are discussing economics as what we think it should be, not what is in our opinion, I think we fall right in that category.
Labor seems to be the big deal in today's economy.
Labor costs the most now, and it could be theorized that because of the desire of profit, businesses are not willing to invest more in human capital and this is why they go to developing countries. However, in a good economy as we have now, the argument could also be made that they need to invest more in labor to attract good employees because they have as much need for good labor as cheap labor. Human capital - environmental protection could be seen as investment in human capital, as health care or education seems to be used for similar argument.