Events before 1982

1920:
Gandhi instigates a boycott of British goods, especially cotton textiles, and encourages everyone in India to use homespun and home-woven cloth

1946:
The Soil Association is founded by a group who argue that farming practices and the well-being of animals, plants and human beings are linked

1962:
Rachel Carson’s highly influential book Silent Spring is published. The book is widely credited with launching the environmental and consumer responsibility movement in the West

1959:
Oxfam pioneers a fair trade programme in the fifties by selling pin-cushions made by Chinese refugees to the UK public

1967:
A Dutch organisation, Support of Development Regions Foundation, starts distributing wooden carvings from Haiti

1972:
The 'sequential switching lamp' sees the light of day. Invented by an Amercian, John Campbell, it is the first fluorescent lamp, and the precursor of today’s low-energy light bulbs

1976:
The first Body Shop opens in Brighton, selling ‘natural’ cosmetics, the brainchild of husband-and-wife team Anita and Gordon Roddick

1977:
The first ‘bottle banks’ in Britain appear, for recycling glass. There are now roughly 50,000 at some 20,000 sites around the country

1979:
UK organisation Traidcraft is launched with a hand-drawn catalogue featuring jute producers from Bangladesh

1980:
Anglo-American Sunningdale Conference on Business and Urban Regeneration

1981:
Brixton, Toxteth and Notting Hill riots
30,000 women protest at Greenham Common air base
3m jobless