The 700-page Stern Review suggests global warming could shrink the global economy by 20%.

You could hear the guffawing and joking of cynical disbelievers a mile away: “If every environmental report ran this long we’d run out of trees, etc, etc.”

I’m inclined to believe the findings. Not because I know he’s right, but because taking his review as a benchmark of future business behaviour could be just the EKPI (environmental key performance indicator) that we need.

ACT NOW, AVOID TAX LATER

Acting now to design out waste, build in sustainability and develop 100% carbon neutral strategies might be a tax on our ingenuity, but it isn’t a tax on our businesses. If done successfully now, it provides UK Ltd with a serious argument against putting any more taxes on consumers as the BBC hinted when the report first appeared.

There are shining examples of organisations that have built-in such initiatives from the beginning and produced quality products. Take Belu Water. All profits from sales of Belu go to clean water projects and the bottle is made from corn, so is biodegradable. Genius. As a consumer you consume and contribute at the same time.

Or look at IKEA, which monitors its social and environmental impact to ensure it causes as little damage to the planet as possible. And there are many examples of such businesses, both in the UK and globally.

Creativity was once described as the defeat of habit by originality and can, in my opinion, overcome everything. It is habit-forming routine that provokes an instant cynical response to potential danger signs ahead. But it is original thinking that drives products and services into new consumer territories.

Business has a clear role to play here. I get tired of hearing how consumers need to be more responsible when history proves that it is very hard to create radical consumer change without radical business change.

We may have nodded to recycling, but until different coloured bins were plonked outside our doors, we did very little about it. We may have secretly confessed that eating organic was better for us, but until the giant supermarkets stuck it under our noses we just carried on in our own sweet way.

So we may read enthusiastically about Brazil’s ethanol cars, but until affordable mass ‘green’ transportation is made available to us ordinary folk, the expensive Toyota ‘Pius’ (as my ‘green’ friend calls it) is not an option.

ETHICAL BUSINESS

It’s easy to create a carbon-neutral company – I did it. Actually it’s fun. OK, the advertising business isn’t a manufacturer, but neither is it top of the Most Ethical Business League.

If business people turn away from the Stern Review, they turn away from creating new products and services that consumers will increasingly turn to. Ethical business is growing business. It is forcing a reclassification of consumer segments. For example, BBC magazines recognises Big Britain, a group of 20 million UK adults between the ages of 25 and 70 who are the new conscientious consumers. They have a total spending power of £238bn, share 10 distinct common values with each other and have the will and the financial means to significantly influence key changes in British society and business.

It doesn’t matter what the percentages of right and wrong are in the Stern Review. What matters is that climate change has entered customer consciousness. It joins ‘organic’ and ‘fair trade’ in the pantheon of phrases that will create a big change in customer direction. Whatever business you are in, you’d better follow them.

Andy Law is chairman of creative consultancy The Law Firm. www.thelawfirmgroup.com