The executive director of the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development, Sandbrook worked toward sustainable development — the idea that natural resources don’t have to be depleted in the drive toward “progress.”
Rather than demonize big business, Sandbrook sought to enlist large companies to embrace more environmental practices. As a result, he was criticized both by environmental groups, who thought he was too close to big business, and by corporations, who didn’t like the way he brought “uncomfortable truths” to the surface. Sandbrook was also one of the founders of the British arm of Friends of the Earth, worked on the United Nations project “Growing Sustainable Business” for the past three years, and chaired the “Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor” project to bring clean water and proper sanitation to the world’s poor. He died December 11 from cancer. He was 59.