Assuming the goal is sustainable development, it is important, when making ecological decisions, not to ignore economic aspects such as value added and profit use, whereby the profit earned could be put to either technical, social, or economic use. A holistic lifecycle approach therefore aims to support or find solutions that are technical feasible, ecologically, and socially defensible and economically rational. A definition of the overall optimum must always take into account the interactions between ecology, economy, and technology. Ecological optimization must not, for instance, be purchased at the cost of failing to satisfy minimum technical specifications or designing a project that cannot be financed as a whole.