Ecosystems: Cardboard to Caviar Closed-Loop Model — Green Business Network, Graham Wiles

Biological model: Ecosystems (multiple species interdependence)

Company: Green Business Network, Graham Wiles

Closed-loop business model developed by the Green Business Network and Graham Wiles that cascades waste from one production stage to become input for another.

The challenge

Industrial processes generate waste streams that go to landfills; linear economy is unsustainable.

Nature's strategy

Ecosystem food webs where waste from one organism feeds another species.

What was emulated

Nutrient and resource cycling through interconnected production systems.

The innovation

Designing industrial clusters where outputs from one process become inputs for others.

Full case study

This pioneering work demonstrates how industrial ecosystems can mimic natural ones. Cardboard waste becomes fish feed, fish waste becomes caviar production and other value streams in an integrated system where each organism's waste feeds another's input, similar to nutrient cycling in natural ecosystems.