An ecological house is modeled on the energy and material flows of natural ecosystems, and thus enhances rather than degrades the environment. Like an ecosystem, an ecological house conserves resources (energy, water, food and materials). It also produces resources, or at least gathers and stores more of them than it uses. The “extra” resources are distributed back into the larger environment to support life elsewhere.
A standard house, by contrast, is a resource sink. Life's essentials flow into it, are dissipated or degraded until useless, and are dumped off into the environment, sometimes as toxic waste. The flow is unidirectional, from source to sink to waste.
In an ecosystem, and in an ideal ecological house, there is no waste because the resource flow is circular. Like houses, ecosystems import energy — mostly solar, in their case. Unlike standard houses, however, ecosystems store their energy and reuse it. It's stored first as plant biomass, which is eventually distributed as food to the ecosystems' myriad inhabitants. Further, and this is the real key to the sustainability of ecosystems, the stored energy continues to circulate, as exchanged nutrients, until it makes its way back to the plants. In the scenario known to every sixth grader, plants make animal food and animals make plant food.
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