Going “green” Is No Longer an Option for Big Business – It Is an Investment Must
Going ‘green’ is no longer an option for big business – it is an investment must, writes Peter Sullivan, one of our contributors.
The environment jumped this year from the fringes of economic theory, plonk, into the centre of the real economy. Like any pebble thrown into placid waters, environmental matters are making waves, and waves hitting the banks create new counter-ripples. Bank is the right word. Because the environment, and our new concern with it, has resulted in billions or even trillions of dollars being invested or diverted to meet those concerns. Bunny huggers and talkers to trees had little effect on our lives in past decades. Many of us chose to ignore, deliberately or forgetfully, soft issues like climate change, global warming, conservationists bemoaning species loss or environmentalists crying about habitat loss. Now these very issues occupy the minds of retailers’ top executives, appear on mining companies’ agendas, influence prices of everything from shampoo to fuel, food to platinum.