This is a follow-up book to David MacKay's Sustainable Energy - without the hot air, the no. 2 green/enviro bestseller in 2009 and 2010, which had a large influence on both government policy and public opinion of how we should plan our energy for the future. (Like Sustainable Energy, the new book is available free online for personal non-commercial use, as well as in paperback and hardback.)

The steel and aluminium industries alone account for nearly 30% of global emissions, and demand is rising. The world target is to reduce industry's carbon emissions by 50% by 2050. However, projections are that world demand for materials will double by 2050, so to meet our emissions target, we have to achieve a 4-fold reduction in emissions per unit of material used: industry will have to make huge changes - not just to the processes involved, but to the entire product life-cycle.

The book presents a vision of change for how future generations can still use steel, cement, plastics etc., but with less impact on the environment. First it's a wake-up call, then it's a solutions manual. The solutions presented here are ahead of the game now. By providing an evidence-based vision of change, the book can play a significant role in influencing our future.

The book has been written for: designers; engineers; operations, technical, and business managers; traders; government and NGO officials associated with business, climate, energy, environment, waste, trade and financing. It is relevant to a wide range of industries: energy: steel and aluminium; mining; construction; consulting; manufacturing; transport, automotive, aerospace, marine; architecture. The style of the book is intended for a popular audience as well as the specialist.

An excellent book ... the message is clear and convincing: We can't go on using materials the way we have been for the past 150 years, but fortunately, we don't have to. We can meet the world's growing need for the stuff of modern life, avoid the worst effects of climate change, and preserve the environment for future generations. [Review of 1st Edition] -- Bill Gates, Gates Notes

Julian Allwood is a Reader in Engineering at the University of Cambridge where he leads the Low Carbon Materials Processing research group and is a fellow of Gonville and Caius College. He worked for 10 years for the aluminium industry and currently holds an EPSRC Leadership Fellowship which funds the WellMet2050 project. He is joint editor-in-chief of the Journal of Materials Processing Technology, a vice Chairman of the International Acadey of Production Engineering (CIRP) and is a lead author for the 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Jonathan Cullen is a Research Associate in the Low Carbon Material Processing group at the University of Cambridge and a Research Fellow at Fitzwilliam College. After five years as a Chemical Process Engineer in New Zealand he worked as a consultant ad development engineer in Peru, before taking an MPhil in Engineering for Sustainable Development and a PhD on the engineering fundamentals of energy efficiency in Cambridge.