Glossary of Green Building Terms Adaptable buildings: Buildings that can be easily remarketed, retrofitted, or reconfigured to better meet the changing needs of occupants, maintenance crews, and the larger community. Build to suit: Construction of  land improvements and buildings to a tenant’s or buyer’s specifications. Composting: A waste management option involving the controlled biological decomposition of organic materials into a stable product that can be applied to the land without adversely affecting the environment. Deconstruction: The reverse of construction. The careful and systematic dismantling of a structure to maximize the recovery of valuable building resources. Engineered lumber: Strong, stable wood product that is created with adhesives, heat and pressure from the fiber of young, abundant, fast growing trees. Green development: A development approach that goes beyond conventional development practice by integrating environmental responsiveness, resource efficiency, and sensitivity to existing culture and community. Green wash (also faux green): To falsely claim a product is environmentally sound. Life cycle: The stages of a product, beginning with raw materials acquisition, continuing with manufacture, construction, and use, and concluding with a variety of recovery, recycling, or waste management options. Locally sourced materials: Materials obtained from within a defined radius around a project site, in order to support the local economy and reduce transportation costs and energy. Non-renewable resources: Natural resources that are consumed faster than can be produced. Thus they are limited resources that could eventually be depleted. Plastic lumber: A lumber product made from recycled plastics or a composite of wood fiber and plastic. Water, chemical, and pest resistant, suggested for decking and light construction; not suitable for structural framing. Post consumer recycled content: Materials used in manufacture have been purchased once already and have been used by consumers, falling within the strictest definition of “recycled.” Products with a high percentage of post consumer recycled content are very resource efficient. Post industrial recycled content: Indicates that manufacturing waste has been cycled back into the production process. These products do not represent the significant resource savings that post consumer products do, but are far preferable to those that use virgin materials. Reclaimed lumber: Wood that has been removed from defunct structures or logs that have sunk in rivers during transport. Has all the advantages—hard, stable, free of knots— of old growth timbers, without the need for continued logging of already depleted forests. Recycled material: Material that would otherwise be destined for disposal but is diverted from the waste stream, reintroduced as a feed stock, and processed into marketed products. Renewable resources: Resources that are created or produced at least as fast as they are consumed, so that nothing is depleted. Source reduction: Minimizing waste at the source of generation; preventing waste before it is generated. Tipping fees: Fees charged for dumping trash at a landfill, transfer station, or recycling facility.