Sustainability and Sustainable Development are nothing new, just a new name for common sense activities that have been happening since the 1800′s.
When the industrial revolution began there was little concern for the environment or the people who lived in it. Primarily the drivers of the industrial revolution appear to have been the ability to produce more for less thereby increasing a company’s or individual’s profit levels exponentially. With little concern for the environment, some places must litterally have looked like hell on earth.
The scene depicted in de Loutherbourg’s painting, “Coalbrookdale by Night”, painted in 1801 gives us an insight in to what it must have been like to live near these new hubs of industrialisation. The air quality must have been very poor indeed. Water quality and sanitation were also extremely poor and the cause of significant disease. Not very good if you are a company depending on your workers being healthy in order to extract maximum productivity out of them. Beer was popular for a reason – it was safer to drink, because of the brewing process, rather than the water of the time.
Thankfully even at this time there were individuals who were concerned about the environment and had the money and influence to do something about it. A social conscience. Preservation and conservation were seen as key issues. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Sierra Club in America are two examples of early environmentalism.
In the decades leading up to the second world war things gradually improved, however most people were living a life of relative frugality. People grew their own veg, raised animals etc. I firmly believe that society was better of.
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