This book offers the first comprehensive natural science-based sustainability theory that describes how sustainability can be quantified. It is based on modern non-equilibrium thermodynamics, as all processes in the world rely on turnover of energy and materials. This is precisely the subject of thermodynamics. Readers will appreciate how easy it is to understand. The book contains no formulas (apart from one or two exceptions), but many well-documented facts. A comprehensive, quantitative theory of sustainability is long overdue – now it is available.

Several practical examples, products, and processes are quantitatively analysed and assessed in terms of their sustainability. These include direct CO2 capture, storage, and utilisation, and also several geoengineering concepts. It is emphasised that any sustainability assessment must also take biodiversity into account, and not just the climate. Therefore, we are investigating the extent to which various ecosystems and organic agriculture can make a significant contribution to addressing the crises related to climate change and biodiversity.

This book translates abstract thermodynamics into daily language and puts it at the center of current discussions about the most urgent environmental crises.

Dr. Bernhard Wessling was born in 1951 and grew up in Herne, Ruhr Region. He is a chemist and entrepreneur who has spent most of his professional career engaged in the development of chemical products and processes towards improving sustainability. For this, he conducted basic research in colloid chemistry and physics as well as non-equilibrium thermodynamics; this enabled him to achieve fundamental innovations which were successfully introduced into the world market. In addition to his primary occupation, he is a long-time investor  of a large organic farm and was one of three managing directors. For decades, he has been actively involved in environmental, nature, and species conservation on a volunteer basis; for many years, he conducted behavioral research on wild cranes both nationally and internationally and made a decisive contribution to the success of a highly complex species conservation project (whooping cranes) in North America. Through these diverse activities, he gained a great deal of practical experience in the field of sustainability, which he is now placing on a universally applicable quantitative theoretical foundation.