This text seeks to demonstrate that, since people's lives are shaped by the environments in which they live, environmental issues have a valid place on the social policy agenda. It focuses on the water, food, housing, domestic energy, transport and leisure needs of modern societies, exploring the ways in which different groups of people meet these needs. The author argues that the use of environmental resources which this entails results in changes that can alter the ability of other groups of people to ensure their present and future well-being. Inequality between these groups, stemming from unequal distribution of resources and influenced by nationality, age, gender and disability, are often perpetuated by the effects of human activities on the environment. The central themes of need and equity, risk and uncertainty, responsibility and economic groeth that run throughout this book are crucial to the development of ideas about the sustainability of social and environmental change.

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