As the world economy faces challenges from energy price spikes, resource shortages, global environmental problems, and security threats, clean technologies are seen to be the next engine of economic growth.

[1] The book has been reviewed in USA Today, Business Week, Energy Priorities, Sustainability Investment News and several other magazines, and has been translated into seven languages.

[5][6] Pernick and Wilder explain that, in the 1970s, clean technology was considered "alternative", the province of back-to-the-land lifestyle advocates, altruistic environmentalists, and lab scientists on research grants.

But now, throughout much of the world, in trends large and small, there is "the beginning of a revolution that is changing the places where we live and work, the products we manufacture and purchase, and the development plans of cities, regional governments, and nations around the globe.

"[7] Pernick and Wilder define "clean tech" as "any product, service, or process that delivers value using limited or zero non-renewable resources and/or creates significantly less waste than conventional offerings.

[9] The authors present a list of drivers for clean tech: "high energy prices, depleted natural resources, volatile sources of foreign oil, record deficits, and unprecedented environmental and security challenges".

[11] Pernick and Wilder identify six major forces, which they call the six C's, that are pushing clean technology into the mainstream and driving rapid growth and expansion: costs, capital, competition, China, consumers, and climate.

[13] Russ Juskalian from USA Today says The Clean Tech Revolution shows the green movement not in "heartstring terms" but as economically profitable.

The real power players are the mainstream consumers, investors, entrepreneurs, governments and multinational corporations whose "eyes are trained on that most crucial of economic fundamentals: the bottom line".