Going green again, lights are goin' out...

The environment is an emotive topic. For every person warning that pumping millions of tonnes of industrial crap into the atmosphere is endangering the future of generations to come there are those who dismiss global warming as a concept and argue that ice ages were waxing and waning thousands of years before the invention of the combi-boiler.

This debate will doubtless rage on, but cutting emissions is surely good for both business and Mother Earth?

Being more energy efficient helps cut costs. What's not to like about that? In a tough market every penny counts.

Businesses I've spoken to have made much of their efforts to reduce energy consumption. As the Carbon Trust points out, cutting energy use by 20 per cent can do the same for profits as a five per cent hike in sales.

And there is an obviously positive effect on said businesses' corporate image. Being 'green' today lends one's operation an air of social responsibility, and perception is a powerful factor in business.

Not quite in the Exxon Valdez's league I'll admit, but the report of a pubco being prosecuted by a local authority for leaving mounds of festering rubbish outside one of its premises affects the perception of the group exponentially far more than the cost of dealing with it properly in the first place. Reputations are tough to build, easy to wreck.

Finally, the stock market is recognising shareholders' demands that the companies in which they invest meet certain corporate and social responsibility standards. Such pressure has led to the creation of the environmentally-friendly FTSE4Good Index, which is populated by no fewer than five UK licensed trade businesses, including Enterprise Inns.

And you wouldn't exactly call Ted Tuppen a 'tree hugger' now would you?