Materials and the Environment: Eco-informed Material Choice (2nd ed.)
About this book
Materials and the Environment: Eco-informed Material Choice Michael F. Ashby 2nd edition Elsevier / Butterworth-Heinemann 978-0-12-385971-6 Summary based on: Elsevier shop description (shop.elsevier.com); ScienceDirect book page; Amazon product page; Google Books preview; Wikipedia entry for Michael F. Ashby; ResearchGate author profile; author's Cambridge Engineering Design Centre page.
Michael F. Ashby's 'Materials and the Environment: Eco-informed Material Choice' stands as the first comprehensive reference dedicated exclusively to the environmental dimensions of material selection, production, use, and disposal. Originally published in 2009 and expanded into a second edition in 2013 by Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann, the book synthesizes Ashby's decades of expertise in systematic materials selection methodology with a rigorous analytical framework for understanding the ecological consequences of how humanity produces and consumes materials.
The work opens by situating material use within the sweep of human history, tracing the progression from prehistoric dependence on naturally occurring substances — stone, bone, and timber — through the metallurgical revolutions of the Bronze and Iron Ages, to the explosion of synthetic polymers, composites, and advanced alloys that define modern industrial civilization. Ashby argues that this escalating material intensity is inseparable from rising energy consumption, and that understanding this link is a prerequisite for genuinely sustainable design. Each successive industrial era has expanded both the palette of available materials and the environmental burden associated with their extraction, processing, and eventual disposal.
At the core of the book lies the concept of the material life cycle — a cradle-to-grave accounting that tracks a material from raw resource extraction through primary and secondary processing, manufacturing, product use, and end-of-life management. Ashby introduces the 'eco-audit' as a practical tool for estimating the energy and carbon dioxide burden associated with each phase of this cycle. The eco-audit approach enables designers and engineers to identify which stage of a product's life dominates its environmental footprint: in some cases it is the energy consumed during product use; in others it is the energy embedded in primary material production, known as embodied energy.
This distinction fundamentally shapes the most effective design response. A car door panel, for instance, may have its greatest impact during the use phase, making lightweighting — replacing steel with aluminum or fiber-reinforced polymer — an effective strategy for reducing lifetime emissions. A household container, by contrast, may have its dominant impact in production, making material choice and recycling content far more important than product efficiency.
Ashby extends this analysis into a structured methodology for eco-informed material selection. Drawing on his well-known development of 'Ashby charts' — graphical property maps that plot two material attributes against each other — the book introduces analogous eco-property maps that relate environmental metrics such as embodied energy, carbon footprint per kilogram, and recyclability to mechanical performance attributes like specific stiffness or specific strength. These charts allow designers to identify materials that achieve a desired mechanical function at minimum environmental cost, providing an elegant visual tool for navigating the trade-offs inherent in sustainable design.
A central analytical contribution is Ashby's treatment of eco-selection strategies, which he organizes around four overarching approaches: selecting materials with lower embodied energy or carbon footprint per unit of functional performance; designing for reduced material content through geometric optimization; designing for longevity and durability to extend the service life of products; and designing for recyclability and the recovery of material value at end of life. These strategies are illustrated through a series of worked case studies drawn from sectors including automotive, aerospace, packaging, construction, and consumer products, making the abstract methodology tangible and directly applicable. The second edition incorporates full-color eco-material data sheets for over forty of the most widely used engineering materials — metals, polymers, ceramics, composites, and natural materials.
Each data sheet presents standardized environmental properties: annual global production volume, known reserves or estimated resource availability, primary and secondary production energies, carbon footprint per kilogram, water usage, and recycled content and recyclability ratings. This reference material transforms the book into both a design guide and a practical data resource, bridging the gap between strategic thinking and quantitative engineering analysis. Ashby also addresses the broader context of sustainability, examining the relationship between material production and planetary resource limits, the role of renewable and bio-based materials, and the legislative and regulatory landscape governing material use — including directives on waste electrical and electronic equipment, end-of-life vehicles, and restrictions on hazardous substances.
He explores the concept of material criticality, identifying materials whose supply chains are concentrated in few geopolitical regions or whose reserves face medium-term depletion, adding a resource-security dimension to the environmental analysis. Throughout, Ashby maintains a tone that is rigorous but accessible, equipping the reader not merely with facts but with a replicable analytical process. The tools and methods presented in the text are directly linked to the CES EduPack Eco Design Edition software developed by Granta Design (now part of Ansys), which allows students and practitioners to apply the book's methodology to real databases of material properties and environmental attributes.
For green building professionals, the book's particular value lies in its treatment of structural and envelope materials — concrete, steel, aluminum, timber, insulation — and in its eco-audit methodology, which can be adapted to evaluate the embodied carbon of construction systems. The framework for balancing embodied energy against operational energy savings is directly relevant to decisions about building envelope performance, structural specification, and material sourcing. Ashby's insistence that environmental performance must be evaluated against functional performance, not in isolation, provides a disciplined counter to simplistic 'green material' claims and supports evidence-based, whole-life thinking in sustainable building design.