Substitution changes can increase sustainability by replacing limited or environmentally damaging inputs with healthier, or less limited, alternatives. Substitution changes may involve replacing herbicides with mechanical weed control, or using legumes to replace fertilization with inorganic nitrogen. Redesign changes are more fundamental and involve whole production systems. In agriculture, the emphasis would be on cropping systems and farming systems as a whole. In some cases, even whole landscape systems should be redesigned.
Redesign changes are likely also to incorporate efficiency and substitution changes.
For example, changing from a mono-cultural grain production system to a multi year crop rotation system can involve numerous substitution and efficiency effects. The general approaches of efficiency, substitution, and redesign changes apply to agriculture as well as to industry and services. However, there is a major difference between agricultural and industrial eco-restructuring. Although modern agriculture is in many senses becoming similar to an industrial activity, it is still fundamentally based upon the management of agricultural ecosystems, including living and non-living components. The capacity of living systems for spontaneous behaviour and unexpected changes makes eco-restructuring in agriculture potentially more complex than in industry.