Ecosystem
The term ecosystem was first used in 1935 in a publication by British ecologist Arthur Tansley. Tansley devised the concept to draw attention to the importance of transfers of materials between organisms and their environment. He later refined the term, describing it as "The whole system, ... including not only the organism-complex, but also the whole complex of physical factors forming what we call the environment". Tansley regarded ecosystems not simply as natural units, but as "mental isolates". Tansley later defined the spatial extent of ecosystems using the term ecotope.
The Biosphere Rules
The Biosphere Rules emerged from a research program established through a 2005 partnership between the renowned eco-designer William McDonough and the Center for Eco-Intelligent Management at IE Business School, a top-ranked European management institute. The research program identified the attributes of natural systems that allowed for the closed-loop production of organisms in the biosphere. These attributes were then used as a framework for analyzing concrete company examples in the program’s second phase. Case studies of first mover companies adopting closed loop or cradle-to-cradle design for product development found common elements that made closed-loop systems viable in a business context. Importantly, the identified elements were similar to the principles seen in natural systems, mapped onto human manufacturing approaches.