This book is claimed to provide the most comprehensive roadmap showing how the world's economies can rapidly reduce their resources consumption and associated pollution, while underpinning strong economic growth. The authorship comprises Ernst von Weizsacker and four young Australian engineers and scientists with sponsorship from the Aachen Foundation Kathy Beys, Griffith University, Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation, Conics Ltd. and Australian National University.

After an introduction by the senior author, the text is in two parts. Part I involving the other authors is entitled ‘A Whole System Approach to Factor Five: The Natural Edge Project’ and considers sector studies on residential and commercial buildings, the steel and cement industries, improvements in agricultural energy and water productivity, food and hospitality, and aspects of the transport industry (cars and light vehicles, heavy freight trucks, and air travel). Part II is authored by von Weizsacker and entitled ‘Making it Happen’, covering regulation, economic instruments, addressing the rebound dilemma, a long-term ecological tax reform, balancing public with private goods and sufficiency in a civilized world. Pleasingly, the book is well illustrated and referenced.

Notwithstanding any pomposity in the claims made in the 32 supportive statements and five quotes from the sponsors, this book is a useful aggregation of facts and opinions. Repetition is a problem, and expert readers in the various industrial sectors and the environment generally will learn little or merely have any prejudices reinforced.

Related, more readable but polemical accounts can be found in Paul Collier's The Plundered Planet: How to Reconcile Prosperity with Nature and Daniel Ben-Ami's Ferraris for All: In Defence of Economic Progress.