The thin green bottom line

A timely reminder from Lord Stern, via Businessgreen.com that businesses ignore the threat of increasing carbon legislation and increasing energy prices at their peril. It has long been my contention that one's personal view on the existence of climate change and the extent to which it is - or isn't - created by humans is irrelevant. The indisputable facts are that:

1. governments are legislating to reduce carbon emissions which makes increasing taxation on emissions as inevitable as, well, death and taxes
2. fossil fuels are no longer being made and will therefore run out, so we need to find alternative energy sources if we wish to retain all the trappings of society to which we have become accustomed
3. scarcity of said fossil fuels will drive price escalation on an epic scale
4. industrialisation and urbanisation of developing countries escalates these issues by increasing demand for energy and consumer goods
5. world population is growing at a rate which will increase competition for food and water to unsustainable levels

Any company that is not planning for these eventualities will not be fit for purpose in the commercial environment of the future. Resource-efficient operation is not an act of altruism, it's a commercial imperative.