Environmental scientists such Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees (they developed the term Ecological Footprint? and the analytical methodology to enable one to actually determine their "Eco-Footprint") see contemporary human systems as being flawed in the elementary and essential elements of their design. One explanation for this is that modern systems are so fixated with growth and increases in production that they overlook the foundational ecological economics that sustain human economics. Hence, a basic term of ecological economics is natural capital, the value that natural systems offer in sustaining human activities.

A nation or civilization cannot be sustain itself over the long-term if in the process of increasing human economic value it reduces the integrity of natural systems. In economic terminology, this is similar to eating up the principle in your bank account. Another useful analogy is to see current economic activities as reducing and degrading the productive capacity of natural systems. The goal of a sustainable system is to live off the interest of the surrounding ecosystem not the principle.

Current practices though lead to dissipation of energy reserves in the solar energy circuit that sustains life on Earth. Simply put, we cannot reduce the integrity and productivity of natural systems, without eventually doing the same to human systems. Francis Frick notes that entropy “is a term originating from thermodynamics, and implies a host of negative correlations attached to our global development paradigm based on Newtonian/Cartesian materialism.” The prevailing construct is that we cannot escape entrophy and that it is an inevitability. While basically the Ecological Cassandras have embraced the idea of entrophy in an attempt to bolster the notion that there are "Limits to Growth" as put forward in the classic Club of Rome book by the same name that was written by several leading environmentalists including Donella Meadows. Paul Elhrich become famous as a ecologist who at the same time postulated the "Dieoff equation" which became the focus Jay Hansen's website of the same name. Elhrich equated unsustainable consumption + population growth as leading to a massive overshooting of our carrying capacity and a resulting unprecedented die-off of humans.

Humans by rapidly and dramatically accelerating the natural entrophic feedback loops that are the basis for sustaining life on the planet as we know it, are creating unprecendented changes in those natural systems. The result is a level of complexity in terms of how those changes cascade onto other systems that we can not really comprehend, understand or accurately gauge in terms of being able to make reliable predictions of the future as to the impact of these changes on humanity.

Yet it is possible that there is a lag time in this doomsday equation that may give us precious time to change course (along the lines of what Ray Anderson calls a Mid-course Correct also the title of a book he wrote). Under such a scenario, drastic changes will begin to impact weather patterns and ecological systems overall, but it is also possible that if we are clever in our mindset and strategy we can adapt and readjust humanity towards a more sustainable trajectory. This alternative model would then propel our species into the future eventually reaching the goal of true sustainability in about 100 years. This lag time is often overlooked as a way to design a decentralized grassroots approach to reverse the destructive changes associated with industrialization as implement from the top down by the power elites that run the national and now the global economy.

Arcology is a useful model towards reexamining how the built environment interfaces with nature. Necessarily this means the application of ecology towards the development of a more harmonious human-nature interface. Frick says, “Arcology is miniaturized, complexified, self-effacing, frugal technology operating within a negentropic (entropy-reducing) field (Francis Frick "A Seaside Arcology for Southern China" Department of Architecture University of Hong Kong). The idea of Arcology as a Negentrophic Experimental Urban Laboratory is more vision that practice at the current time but there is a case to be made that this is a valid and viable vision to evolve Arcosanti or a similar project around.

Negentrophy would be the result of integrated systems/human habitats that consider all the impacts of human activity with the result a careful design process that puts forward a holistic approach to development that is synergistic. The resulting synergies it is theorized will then lead to levels of efficency, that reducing and reversing the accelerating entrophy feedback loops precipated by what Biomimcry founder Janine Beynus calls the "Take Make Waste" industrial culture.  Key to this is the effective use of the sun to heat the buildings, grow food and produce energy as envisioned by Soleri's Energy Apron Greenhouse Complex.

Molly O’Meara an analyst at the Worldwatch Foundation suggests that an important “guiding principle” for a sustainable economy and society is to mimic nature’s ways. “Rather than devouring water, food, energy and processed goods, and then belching out the remains as pollutants,” writes O’Meara, “the city could align its consumption with realistic needs, produce more of its own food and energy, and put much more of its waste to use.”