The New Green Economy

• Are they created naturally?
• Are they manufactured by human involvement?
• Are they naturally biodegradable?
• Are they continually reusable and/or partially reusable?
• Are the materials inert or hazardous?
• What is the disposal method commonly used?
• What is my desired life span of the product?

Depending on your answers, you can determine the lifecycle of your existing materials and can decide which nutrient cycle is best for your product.  If your product is primarily composed of biological nutrients, with some technical nutrients, ask yourself:

• Are they easily and completely separable at the time of disposal?
• Can the technical nutrients be substituted for biological nutrients?
• If yes, is the desired lifespan of the product still maintained?
• If no, can the technical nutrients of the product be redesigned to be easily and completely separable at the time of disposal?
• If yes, how can I cost effectively incorporate a reclamation program in order to reclaim the separated technical nutrients?

If your product is primarily composed of technical nutrients, with some biological nutrients, ask yourself:

• Are they easily and completely separable at the time of disposal?
• Can the biological nutrients be substituted for technical nutrients?
• If yes, is the desired lifespan of the product still maintained?
• If no, can the biological nutrients of the product be redesigned to be easily and completely separable at the time of disposal?
• Do I have an exiting reclamation program in place to reclaim the technical nutrients?
• If no, how can I cost effectively incorporate such a reclamation program?

Once you’ve determined the primary nutrient cycle of your product, and how it is currently disposed, you can then determine how your products life cycle directly increases your business’s triple bottom line – economically, ecologically, socially.

For instance, as a green-building design firm, Sustainable Living Systems' C.O.R.E. Home is comprised of numerous materials.  In assessing our products’ nutrient flow, it is imperative to:

• understand how each building material relates to the whole;
• what the lifespan is for each material;
• which nutrient cycle each material encompasses;
• how we re-harness and redirect the technical nutrients back to the manufacturers for reuse or upcycle-ability;
• how the biological nutrients can be reabsorbed into the biological nutrient flow;

For each material that is re-harnessed, we not only save the cost of harvesting, manufacturing, delivering, and disposing that same products’ virgin counterparts; but we’ve directly reduced the material costs of rebuilding a comparative C.O.R.E. Home.