Industrial Evolution: Local Solutions for a Low Carbon Future

For many people, the word "industry" brings to mind images of sprawling factories belching toxic emissions in a blighted natural landscape. "Industrial" has become synonymous with pollution, human rights abuse, and corporate greed. In Industrial Evolution, Lyle Estill seeks to reclaim the term, with its original connotations of hard work, diligence, and productivity, and to show how community-scale enterprise can create a vibrant, sustainable local economy.

Industrial Evolution is a story of survival. It is about how the small group of committed entrepreneurs introduced in Small is Possible managed to keep their dream alive and thriving through the economic recession, emerging with a model of what a sustainable local economy might look like in a post carbon future. Compulsively readable and seasoned with light humor, this grassroots account demonstrates that ecological stewardship and enterprise at an appropriate scale can lay the foundation for abundance.

Industrial Evolution skips the doom and gloom and is all about solutions. By showing that it is possible to take the big out of industry, this book motivates people to work together in a meaningful way. Filled with inspirational tales of success, failure, perseverance, and real world experiences that anyone can relate to, Industrial Evolution is a must-read for activists, organizers, politicians, and anyone who cares about resilient communities.

Lyle Estill is the president and co-founder of Piedmont Biofuels and the author of Small is Possible and Biodiesel Power. He has won numerous awards for his commitment to sustainability, outreach, community development, and leadership.

Lyle Estill is the president, co-founder and VP of Stuff at Piedmont Biofuels, and has won numerous awards for his commitment to sustainability, outreach, community development and leadership. Over the past two decades Lyle’s vision of enterprise has become increasingly local—for the past three years he has focused on his “Hundred Mile Diet” and become deeply immersed in his foodshed. Lyle is a prolific writer and the author of Small is Possible: Life in a Local Economy and Biodiesel Power: The Passion, the People, and the Politics of the Next Renewable Fuel.