  A complex interplay between the academic issue about generalization of the
thermodynamics and the practical matter about setting standards for a
sustainable evolution of both tailored devices and natural systems is
considered. It is established that the measure for a sustainable evolution in
an ever-changing environment appears as a Boltzmann-Gibbs weight. At the same
time, this measure performs as a local thermodynamical potential which, at the
expense of being released from the condition of entropy maximization, serves as
grounds for a fundamental development of the idea of banning perpetuum mobile.
It is proven that the best efficiency of each engine that operates reversibly
never exceeds the efficiency of corresponding Carnot heat engine where the
engine is free from necessity of a physical coupling to two heat reservoirs.
