A method is provided for system deconstruction for component substitution. The method includes a system tree which is deconstructed in a computer-readable medium, the system tree deconstructing into constituent nodes. Each node in the system tree represents a characteristic of a component of a system under consideration. A database of trees is searched for trees containing similar attributes to the system tree. Trees are qualified based on a frequency of nodes that are similar to certain highly ranked nodes in the system tree. The most relevant nodes from the qualified trees are selected. Searching the database is terminated when the most relevant nodes account for a fraction, less than a whole, of an environmental footprint of the system tree.