The campaign's objective is to provide a better quality of life by cutting pollution, improving public transport and energy conservation.

Secrett also wants a food justice bill in the British parliament to eradicate food poverty in deprived areas, as well as taxation and public spending measures that address sustainable development.

Research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medecine and Friends of the Earth, presented at the House of Commons late on Thursday, found social injustices were linked to environmental factors.

"Environmental factors experienced by the least well off in society are clearly an important part of their social exclusion," said John Horam MP, chairman of the Environmental Audit Select Committee.

The British government pledged last year to wipe out child poverty within a generation, with Chancellor Gordon Brown calling it a "scar on Britain's soul".

A Joseph Rowntree Foundation report in December said one in three British children lives below the poverty line. Other recent academic reports have found that some low income families cut spending on food to pay rent or fuel bills.

Secrett said the rate of deaths from the cold in winter increased by 33 percent in Britain, compared to 14 percent in Sweden and 10 percent in Norway, where temperatures are much more severe.

This was because of better energy conservation and policies to prevent the less well off from suffering disproportionately, he said.