| Issue | Conventional Design | Ecological Design |
|---|---|---|
| Energy source | Usually nonrenewable and destructive, relying on fossil fuels or nuclear power; the design consumes natural capital | Whenever feasible, renewable: solar, wind, small-scale hydro, or biomass; the design lives off solar income |
| Materials use | High-quality materials are used clumsily, and resulting toxic and low-quality materials are discarded in soil, air, and water | Restorative materials cycles in which waste for one process becomes food for the next; designed-in reuse, recycling, flexibility, ease of repair, and durability |
| Pollution | Copious and endemic | Minimized; scale and composition of wastes conform to the ability of ecosystems to absorb them |
| Toxic substances | Common and destructive, ranging from pesticides to paints | Used extremely sparingly in very special circumstances |
| Ecological accounting | Limited to compliance with mandatory requirements like environmental-impact reports | Sophisticated and built in; covers a wide range of ecological impacts over the entire life-cycle of the project, from extraction of materials to final recycling of components |
| Ecology and economics | Perceived as in opposition; short-run view | Perceived as compatible; long-run view |
| Design criteria | Economics, custom, and convenience | Human and ecosystem health, ecological economics |
| Sensitivity to ecological context | Standard templates are replicated all over the planet with little regard to culture or place; skyscrapers look the same from New York to Cairo | Responds to bioregion: the design is integrated with local soils, vegetation, materials, culture, climate, topography; the solutions grow from place |
| Sensitivity to cultural context | Tends to build a homogeneous global culture; destroys local commons | Respects and nurtures traditional knowledge of place and local materials and technologies; fosters commons |
| Biological, cultural, and economic diversity | Employs standardized designs with high energy and materials throughout, thereby eroding biological, cultural, and economic diversity | Maintains biodiversity and the locally adapted cultures and economies that support it |
| Knowledge base | Narrow disciplinary focus | Integrates multiple design disciplines and wide range of sciences; comprehensive |
| Spatial scales | Tends to work at one scale at a time | Integrates design across multiple scales, reflecting the influence of larger scales on smaller scales and smaller on larger |
| Whole systems | Divides systems along boundaries that do not reflect the underlying natural processes | Works with whole systems; produces designs that provide the greatest possible degree of internal integrity and coherence |
| Role of nature | Design must be imposed on nature to provide control and predictability and meet narrowly defined human needs | Includes nature as a partner: whenever possible, substitutes nature's own design intelligence for a heavy reliance on materials and energy |
| Underlying metaphors | Machine, product, part | Cell, organism, ecosystem |
| Level of participation | Reliance on jargon and experts who are unwilling to communicate with public limits community involvement in critical design decisions | A commitment to clear discussion and debate; everyone is empowered to join the design process |
| Types of learning | Nature and technology are hidden; the design does not teach us over time | Nature and technology are made visible; the design draws us closer to the systems that ultimately sustain us |
| Response to sustainability crisis | Views culture and nature as inimical, tries to slow the rate at which things are getting worse by implementing mild conservation efforts without questioning underlying assumptions | Views culture and nature as potentially symbiotic; moves beyond triage to a search for practices that actively regenerate human and ecosystem health |