Mike George, a writer and campaigner on social justice and the environment, who has died aged 75 after contracting a rare form of tuberculosis, was instrumental in advancing ideas for socially useful manufacturing and in developing understanding of consumer vulnerability.
George questioned the assumption in the regulation of essential services that there were fixed groups of vulnerable people whose interests needed protecting. He argued instead that vulnerability could potentially affect anyone at any time for a range of reasons, including income pressures or illness, and he devised a risk-factor approach that is now standard practice.
