Alternatively, you may like to be convinced of the value of taking an active interest in the environment, and in taking this course. Let us give you some background, first in terms of commercial influence on your company.
Let us assume that you are a manufacturing company based in the UK. Throughout its industrial history Britain has been a world leader, largely due to its entrepreneurial spirit, supply of coal and iron ore and availability of raw materials from its Empire. The economy prospered for three main reasons: the means of mass production was refined, people moved from the countryside into the cities to act as the labour force and energy or power was provided by the ubiquitous steam engine. The true environmental consequences of the industrial revolution were not particularly obvious and to some extent although we are more aware of them now, the damage that can be caused by industry and mans activities is not always directly observable. Some of the issues are briefly outlined in the following boxes.
Finite resources
The supply of coal, oil and gas, upon which we rely most strongly, is unlikely to continue beyond the next generation. Most minerals are generally more plentiful but we cannot presume that we have continued access to them forever.
Pollution There are two broad aspects
Local pollution Of rivers, watercourses land and air leading to damage to human health.	Global pollution Of the oceans and the upper atmosphere leading to major issues such as global warming/climate change.
Social considerations There are two broad aspectsFinite resources
In the United Kingdom 24,000 people (mostly poor) a year have hastened deaths due to poor air quality. 30,000 people die each year due to cold/poor quality housing Motorists pay only a third of what motoring costs in terms of environmental damage. VAT on energy conservation measures is 17.5%, whereas on environmentally damaging energy consumption it is 5%.
We shall return to these later in more detail, but for the moment it is important to understand why the industrial culture in the UK has had such a negative view of environmental issues. It has always been assumed that at our relatively low level of consumption that resources such as the supply of minerals and energy will last indefinitely. Further, we believed that any pollution that we create will disperse, for example into the world's oceans or upper atmosphere and that that pollution will be diluted to such indescribably small concentrations that it will not constitute any threat to mankind or the planet. We are now revising these views as evidence of environmental damage becomes available and as the growth in world population and standards of living place further stresses on the planet.