‘This is a wonderful book that should be on the desk of every architect and planner. It shows how

3 Ecological waste analysis
Ecological waste analysis would count the costs of restoring the whole ecosystem. It would consider 
the resource base as a 
living
system. Depending on the scale of the project, it would notionally or 
quantitatively measure the effects on the life-support system, future social options, and the equitable 
distribution of the means of survival and quality of life. In other words, it would ‘weigh in’ the 
replacement cost, time and value of the forest as an ecosystem, not just the trees or timber contained 
in them (Figure 7). This would challenge the conventional approach of trading off competing interests 
in forest products by converting good farmland to tree plantations, instead of using degraded land.
56
There is no human material or non-material need that requires ecological waste.

---

76
Positive Development
Figure 6 Material flows of trees in timber production (‘doughnut model’)
Transport waste 6%
Sawmilling waste 27%
Over-specification
waste 6%
Remaining tree resource 
(volume) captured in products
Standardized waste 
sized 3%
Retail waste 3%
Drying waste 5%
Logging waste 40%
Percentages of 
waste are highly 
variable depending 
on forest type and 
forest practices.
The total 
cumulative waste 
is up to 94%.
Cumulative – compounded – waste through the supply chain does not consider the life span of the timber 
product or the replacement cost, space and time required to replace the tree or forest, let alone to restore 
the ecology.
Forest timber volume or 
biomass
Embodied Waste
Ecological Waste
The ecology does not 
fully recover during the 
production cycle
60 year cycle
What would the idea of ecological waste contribute to our awareness?
Sustainability demands an analysis in which the ecology is central, since it is the basis of human 
existence. Figure 7 is intended to communicate the idea that biomass may recover during the 
production cycle, but not the ecology. The concept of ecological waste is intended to help account for 
the health of the life-support system itself. Embodied waste could be recovered over the production 
cycle of the forest, as the trees grow to maturity. However, apart from a few heirloom objects, the 
whole forest, with its creatures and habitats, virtually ‘goes to waste’, because the production cycle 
is shorter than the period in which the forest ecosystem can regenerate. In some regions, the forest 
may not regenerate as a healthy ecological system approximating the original variety of tree ages, 
Figure 7 Ecological waste of forests in timber production 

---

77
Development Standards and Criteria
species and biodiversity for centuries. This means the ecological base is ‘in deficit’ for a much longer 
period than the life-cycle of a typical wood product or timber building or even the ‘crop rotation’ 
period. The embodied waste of timber in a clear-felled native forest can arguably be reduced by 
planting and maintaining mixed species and mixed use plantations, but such plantations still cannot 
replace the ecological base, with its complete set of eco-services. Truly sustainable resource-allocation 
decisions would consider the time it takes ecosystems to recover to something equivalent to their 
original state.