Nanotechnology and global sustainability Foreword Vijoleta Braach Maksvytis When Donnie Maclurcan approached me in 2004 to help guide some of his groundbreaking PhD research on the societal implications of nanotechnology I was delighted to discover a like minded colleague who shared such a consideration. As his PhD conclusions sharpened Donnie was already beginning to collate the work of others into a volume that would take his dissertation findings about nanotechnology and global inequity one step further. With a steadfastness of vision unswerving integrity and belief in the better characteristics of us as global peoples this book was created. Yet this work has much deeper foundations. In the late 1950s the field of nanotechnology was foreshowed with Nobel Laureate physicist Richard Feynmans dream of taking advantage of a new world available at the nanoscale the level of atoms and small molecules. What is it about nanoscience that has created so much attention It has opened a world of new materials and properties simply by the reduced dimensions of familiar materials on the nanoscale. This is because of three main characteristics: The nanoscale is the scale of natures building blocks such as DNA and proteins; at this scale materials have more surface than volume increasing the importance of surface interaction properties; and at nanoscale the effects of quantum physics begin to dominate over classical physics. Take for example the simple interaction of light with gold metal. Light on a golden wedding ring tells us that gold is gold colored. Light interacting with a 20 nanometer sized nanoparticle of gold tells us that gold has a deep red color not a trace of gold in sight! It was not until the early 1990s that Feynmans dream became a frontier science and even then The rise of collaborative consumption peer to peer systems and not for profit social enterprise heralds the emergence of a new era of human collectivity. Increasingly this consolidation stems from an understanding that big banner issues such as climate change are not the root causes of our present global predicament. There is a growing and collective view that issues such as this are actually symptoms of a much more vicious seemingly insurmountable condition: our addiction to economic consumption and population growth in a world of finite resources.Nanotechnology and Global Sustainability uses nanotechnology the product of applied scientific knowledge to control and utilize matter at atomic and molecular scales as a lens through which to explore the interrelationship between innovation politics economy and sustainability. This groundbreaking book addresses how stakeholders can actively reshape agendas to create positive and sustainable futures through this latest controversial cross sectoral technology. It moves beyond issues of efficiency productivity and utility exploring the insights of 22 contributors from around the world whose work spans the disciplines of science and the humanities. Their combined knowledge reinforced with various case studies introduces an exciting prospect how we can innovate without economic growth.This new volume in the Perspectives in Nanotechnology series is edited by Dr. Donald Maclurcan and Dr. Natalia Radywyl. Dr. Maclurcan is a social innovator and Honorary Research Fellow with the Institute for Nanoscale Technology at the University of Technology Sydney Australia. Dr. Radywyl is a social researcher and Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne Australia. She is also an Adjunct Research Fellow in the Faculty of Life and Social Sciences at Swinburne University of Technology Melbourne. This book is written for a wide audience and will be of particular interest to activists scholars policy makers scientists business professionals and others who seek an understanding of how we might justly transition to sustainable societies