By Bruce Armstrong Taylor

Climate 4.0 is a post-industrial-era state of biosphere equilibrium reached only when the unit being measured has not only achieved net-zero carbon, en toto, but is both circular and regenerative. And at the level of whatever unit is being measured.

Unit being measured means the individual person (you/me), home, business, corporate enterprise, public agency, city, state/province, nation state.

En toto, in this case, is in terms of total carbon/GHG resulting from:

Operational energy use by plant, equipment, property and facilities infrastructure and operations, and transportation;

Embodied – that which is "locked into..."

--Built environments – plant, equipment, office space, other site physical facilities and infrastructure;

--Supply chains and distribution logistics; and

--Materials and products.

Just as the natural environment is defined and viewed as an "ecosystem," so must the human-built environment be viewed similarly. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPS) defines it this way:

"Formally, the built environment, itself a specialized form of ecosystem, includes all buildings, spaces and products that are created or modified by people"