Material design research that looks at natural earth- and bio-based materials necessitates critical insights from a life cycle perspective. From traditional architecture to digital fabrication and additive manufacturing, understanding the environmental and social impacts is crucial for field advancements, pedagogy, and novel research development. This chapter catalogues, demystifies, and categorizes the terminology and attributes of natural materials through a life cycle approach. From the system boundaries definition to the thermal performance in the operational phase and the end-of-life recyclability, health, and biophilia, each building mix design in earth-fiber construction can illuminate the projected required development, and recommendations for the industry, driven by the need to incentivize an embodied approach to mandatory energy requirements.