ISBN 92-808-0984-9 1998, 424 pages US$29.95, paper

This study provides a significant contribution to the literature on sustainability by identifying, on a sectoral basis, the critical issues facing the world as a whole, and the technical feasibility of addressing them. A new paradigm of eco-restructuring for sustainable development is introduced, involving shifts in technology, economic activities and lifestyles needed to harmonize human activities with natural systems.

This volume analyses a number of sectors and technological fields that are involved in the search for sustainable patterns of industrialization. Each technology chapter presents, in a self-contained and comprehensive way, the state of the sector, the primary issues that concern the sector's sustainability, and the technical means for achieving sustainable outcomes. Comprehensive coverage is given on the fields of materials, various energy technologies and futures, tropical land use, transport and industrial space use, ecological process engineering, and agro-engineering. The volume also contains chapters on systems views of the broader eco-restructuring concept, including its biophysical basis, global eco-restructuring and technological change, and national and international policy instruments and institutions.

Set forth in this way, the book breaks new ground in the understanding of sustainability as a multi- and interdisciplinary area.

Robert U. Ayres is Sandoz Professor of Management and the Environment at the European Institute of Business Administration (INSEAD), Fontainebleau, France. Paul M. Weaver is Director of the Centre for Eco-efficiency, Enterprise and Economy, Universities of Durham and Portsmouth, UK.