Sustainability Principles and Practice
Fourth Edition
biomimicry
An approach to designing products or buildings using nature as a model.
certification
A procedure by which a third party verifies the level of performance of a product, process or service compared to some standard.
circular economy
A closed-loop economy with a continuous cyclic flow of materials, where output from one process becomes input for another.
cradle to cradle
A design approach in which materials are thought of as nutrients which recycle continuously.
design for environment
The practice of designing products and manufacturing processes in environmentally responsible ways.
eco-efficiency
An approach to product and process design that seeks to minimize material consumption, waste, and pollution.
eco-industrial park
A complex of industrial facilities which applies the principles of industrial ecology in an industrial ecosystem.
eco-label
A label which gives information about a product or service in terms of its environmental or social impacts.
embodied energy
The total energy used to produce, transport, and dispose of a product.
environmental management system (EMS)
A formal system within an organization for developing, implementing, and maintaining environmental policies and procedures.
Factor 4
A concept which proposes that humans should reduce their consumption of resources to one-fourth of the current levels in order not to exceed the planet’s carrying capacity.
Factor 10
A concept which proposes that humans should reduce their consumption of resources to one-tenth of the current levels in order not to exceed the planet’s carrying capacity.
green chemistry
The use of chemical materials and processes with little or no toxicity.
greenwashing
The use of deliberately misleading terms in order to portray an environmentally responsible image.
industrial ecology
An approach to the design of products and processes that helps an industrial system behave like an ecosystem, where the output from one industry is the input for another.