What We Consume provides a curriculum framework and classroom activities for teachers wishing to explore issues of environment and development with older pupils in secondary schools. Eighty original activities, in eight units, link pupils as consumers to economies and societies around the world. They enable them to study different forms of development and underdevelopment, recognize the impact these have on nature and the environment, and consider alternatives that are more ecologically sustainable. In doing this, pupils learn of the part which they and others play in such issues as acid rain, desertification and the destruction of tropical moist forests. They develop their understanding of the economic and political roots of environmental issues and consider social alternatives which may allow more harmonious relations between people and between people and the rest of nature. In this way, What We Consume introduces some of the central themes of the World and UK Conservation Strategies and educates young people for the roles they might play in the transition to ecologically sustainable development.

Of the ten units of What We Consume originally planned, eight units and a Teachers' Handbook were published by WWF, in association with Richmond Publishing, between 1988 and 1993. The units build upon the Programme for Political Education's framework for political literacy. This was later to influence the Crick Report and the QCA's framework for citizenship education in schools.

Unit 1    Society and Nature
Unit 3    Our Consumer Society (with Liz Chidley)
Unit 4    The United Kingdom (farming and wetland drainage)
Unit 5    Brazil (cattle ranching and rainforest destruction in Rondonia)
Unit 6    Nigeria: environment and development (Liz Chidley)
Unit 7    The USSR (Lake Baikal - management of water resources)
Unit 8    China: Beijing - a liveable city?
Unit 10   The Environment and Democracy (Chipko in India, Solidarity in Poland, local socialism in UK)