Biodegradable: Capable of being decomposed by bacteria or other living organisms and thereby avoiding pollution.
Bioeconomy: An economy where the basic building blocks for materials, chemicals, and energy are derived from renewable biological resources.
Carbon Footprint: The total amount of greenhouse gases that are emitted into the atmosphere as a result of the activities of a particular individual, organization, or community.
Circular economy: An economic system aimed at eliminating waste and the continual use of resources. Circular systems employ reuse, sharing, repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing, and recycling to create a closed-loop system, minimizing the use of resource inputs and the creation of waste, pollution, and carbon emissions.
Circular Supply Chain: A supply chain that includes recycling and where the end-of-life disposal is planned in design and effectively implemented.
Clean Technology: Technologies that utilize renewable materials and energy sources, reduce emissions and wastes, and have a minimal impact on the environment.
Closed Loop System: A production system where the process inputs (materials, energy, and water) are completely used and re-used.
Composting: A natural process of recycling organic material such as leaves and vegetable scraps into a rich soil amendment.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): A business model that helps a company be socially accountable—to itself, its stakeholders, and the public.
Cradle to Cradle: A sustainable business strategy that models human industry on nature's processes in which materials are viewed as nutrients circulating in healthy, safe metabolisms.
Domestic Material Consumption (DMC) is the total amount of raw materials, both domestically extracted and imported, used within a specific nation for its economic activities and consumption, excluding materials that are subsequently exported. It serves as an essential indicator for assessing a country's resource utilization and environmental impact.
Domestic Material Consumption (DMC) per capita is a measure of the average amount of raw materials and resources directly consumed by an individual within a specific nation. It provides insights into the per-person material usage and environmental impact associated with resource consumption.
Downcycling: The recycling of waste where the recycled material is of lower quality and functionality than the original material.
Eco-design: The practice of designing products with special consideration for the environmental impacts of the product during its whole lifecycle.
Eco-innovation: The development of products and processes that contribute to sustainable development, applying the commercial application of knowledge to elicit direct or indirect ecological improvements.
Ecosystem Services: The benefits humans derive from ecosystems, such as clean air and water, and crop pollination.
Energy Recovery: The process of converting waste material into usable heat, electricity, or fuel through a variety of processes, including combustion, gasification, pyrolization, anaerobic digestion, and landfill gas recovery.
Environmental Audit: An evaluation intended to identify environmental compliance and management system implementation gaps, along with related corrective actions.
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA): The procedure for evaluating the potential environmental effects of a proposed project or development.
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR): An environmental policy approach in which a producer's responsibility for a product is extended to the post-consumer stage of the product's life cycle.
Green Economy: An economy that aims at reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities, and that aims for sustainable development without degrading the environment.
Green Procurement: The acquisition of products and services that have a reduced environmental impact throughout their life cycle.
Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions: Emissions of gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, contributing to global warming and climate change.
Industrial Symbiosis: A form of cooperation between different industries where waste or byproducts of one company are used as resources by another.
Innovative Materials: New or modified materials that reduce impacts on the environment at any stage of their life cycle.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): A technique to assess environmental impacts associated with all the stages of a product's life from cradle to grave (i.e., from raw material extraction through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use, repair and maintenance, and disposal or recycling).
Life Cycle Thinking: Considering the impacts of a product or service at all stages, from raw material extraction through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use, repair and maintenance, and disposal or recycling.
Material Flow Accounting (MFA) is a systematic approach to quantifying the flow of materials through an economy or ecosystem, tracking the extraction, production, consumption, and disposal of raw materials and products. It provides valuable insights into resource use and environmental impacts.
Material footprint is a metric that quantifies the total amount of raw materials, both domestic and imported, used to meet a nation's final consumption, including those directly contained in products and those needed to produce and transport imported goods. It reflects the environmental pressure associated with resource consumption and helps assess a country's material-related impact on the environment.
Material Recovery: The process of retrieving recyclable materials from the waste stream for the purpose of recycling.
Natural Capital: The world's stocks of natural assets which include geology, soil, air, water, and all living things.
Product Lifecycle: The stages a product goes through from raw material extraction, through manufacture, distribution, and use, to disposal or recycling.
Product Stewardship: Where environmental responsibility is extended across the whole product lifecycle to minimize environmental impacts.
Recycling: The process of collecting and processing materials that would otherwise be thrown away as trash and turning them into new products.
Regenerative Design: A process-oriented systems theory based approach to design, which promotes the restoration, renewal, and growth of natural systems.
Remanufacturing: The process of disassembling and recovering used products to restore them to like-new condition.
Renewable Energy: Energy from a source that is not depleted when used, such as wind or solar power.
Resource Efficiency: Using the Earth's limited resources in a sustainable manner while minimizing impacts on the environment.
Resource Productivity is a measure of how efficiently an economy or system uses its available resources to generate economic output, typically expressed as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per unit of resource input. It reflects the ability to produce more value with fewer resources, indicating greater efficiency and sustainability.
Resource Recovery: The extraction of usable resources from waste materials.
Reuse: The action or practice of using an item, whether for its original purpose (conventional reuse) or to fulfill a different function (creative reuse).
Stakeholder Engagement: The process by which an organization involves people who may be affected by the decisions it makes or can influence the implementation of its decisions.
Supply Chain Sustainability: The management of environmental, social, and economic impacts within the supply chain.
Sustainability: Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Sustainable Consumption: The use of goods and services that respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life while minimizing the use of natural resources.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): A collection of 17 global goals set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 for the year 2030 that aim to protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all.
Sustainable Infrastructure: Infrastructure built to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Sustainable Materials Management: The use and reuse of materials in the most productive and sustainable way across their entire life cycle.
Sustainable use: The use of services and related products, which respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life, while minimizing the use of natural resources, toxic materials, and emissions of waste and pollutants over the lifecycle, so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations.
Upcycling: Reusing discarded objects or materials in such a way as to create a product of a higher quality or value than the original.
Waste Audit: A methodical examination of an organization's waste stream to assess the amount and types of waste that are generated.
Waste Hierarchy: The classification of waste management strategies according to their desirability in terms of waste minimization. The hierarchy typically places emphasis on prevention, reduction, reuse, recycling, recovery, and lastly disposal.
Waste management: The activities and actions required to manage waste from its inception to its final disposal. This includes the collection, transport, treatment, and disposal of waste, together with monitoring and regulation of the waste management process.
Waste Minimization: The process and the policy of reducing the amount of waste produced by a person or a society.
Waste prevention: Measures taken to reduce the volume and toxicity of waste generated, as well as efforts to increase the sustainable use of resources. Waste prevention strategies can include changes in product design and production processes, as well as consumer behavior.
Waste to Wealth: The concept of taking products that are at the end of their life cycle and converting them into resources that generate wealth.
Zero Landfill: A company policy and strategy to eliminate all waste materials sent to landfills through methods such as recycling, composting, or conversion to energy.
Zero Waste: A philosophy that encourages the redesign of resource life cycles so that all products are reused and no trash is sent to landfills or incinerators.
