Published in 1996, it pioneered[2] the concept of preventive environmental management, a core principle of the circular economy framework.

Twenty years before the Ellen MacArthur Foundation established its now widely recognised circular economy mission, Tim Jackson began developing what was called at the time preventive environmental management.

[3] Material Concerns - Pollution, Profit and Quality of Life[1] was published in 1996 as a synthesis of his findings in Clean Production Strategies – Developing Preventive Environmental Management in the Industrial Economy,[4] an edited collection drawing chapters from pre-eminent writers in the field, such as Walter R Stahel, Bill Rees, and Bob Costanza.

"Jackson has filled a near-unique niche in clean production publications with a text that combines great explicatory power with a driving visionary message", Andrew Tickle wrote in the Environmental Policy and Governance Journal.

"[8] Roland Clift called it "a very impressive and potentially influential book: imaginative yet rooted in sound common sense.