Placing a price on carbon of anywhere from $10 to $80 a tonne can have a profound effect on business planning. It can help a company cut costs, while dramatically reducing its risk and exposure to rising energy prices and a price being put on carbon. Which brings us to an important question...

Decades of experience have shown that environmental initiatives pursued in isolation of the economic benefit are largely immaterial. But when environmental objectives are framed as business strategy and tied to business operations and measured in terms of cutting cost and increasing profitability -- significant environmental benefits are generated. And so we believe that environmentalism can save business, as the more powerful engagement tool that business has at its disposal to drive innovation.

Bill Clinton at the DNC said what white- and blue-collar workers have known for 30 years: you need to invest in people to have an innovative and productive economy. My coach, used to say "you get corn, if you plant corn." Neither in government nor in business have we been planting corn. We quit planting it almost 30 years ago when we got rid of middle management in government and the private sector, and as the economy reveals, we are losing.