This book 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.
The authors analyze a number of sectors and technological fields that are involved in the search for sustainable patterns of industrialization. Each technology chapter presents 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 to the fields of materials, various energy technologies and futures, tropical land use, transport and industrial space use, ecological process engineering, and agro-engineering. The book 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.
The book breaks new ground in the understanding of sustainability as a multi- and interdisciplinary area.