Businesses need to show leadership in this new consumer market and continue to demonstrate to their customers that they strive for perfection, innovation, and progress in all that they do- and this means showing real commitment towards the environment.

Sustainability should not be an add-on or tick box to meet short-term aims. It is much more- sustainability is the essence of good business. Respect for the environment and social responsibility may be the new buzzwords of many an annual corporate report, but this has become more than just a new moral crusade.

With the economic crisis, there has been a re-evaluation of how companies run their operations and look to reduce waste of time, money and resources. There is no fundamental contradiction between concern for the environment and the profit motive that drives businesses. Choosing to teleconference instead of flying may reduce your carbon footprint, for example, but it also saves you time and money.

Acting in a ‘sustainable way’ allows companies to become more competitive, more resilient to shocks, nimbler in a rapidly changing world, more likely to attract and hold clients and the best employees, and more at ease with increasing environmental regulation.

Yes, the concept of ‘sustainability’ may be better described as an ‘objective’ or a ‘vision’. But semantics aside, this does not mean that we should give up and not bother. On a grander scale, whilst the challenges of achieving ‘sustainability’ are huge, they are no less significant than those of the human race wanting to achieve, say, an end to poverty or world peace! Important, but seemingly impossible goals that we need to strive for to ensure the very survival of the human race!

Whether we choose to admit it, or bury our heads in the sand, our planet’s resources are finite and all businesses (and consumers) will face restrictions on what we currently produce and buy, at an alarming rate. Next on the list? Tuna. This much loved lunch-time favourite will disappear from our bento boxes in less than 5 years if we do not do more to ensure sustainable fishing practices…for example.

Who knows exactly what will happen to our planet over the next 20, 50, 100 years? But what is clear is that markets can and must be made to work to help fasten the pace towards our vision of a ‘green’ future. There is no going back and the alternative is too scary to contemplate. Without real commitment from advertisers, marketers and consumers, progress towards achieving a goal/objective/vision of global sustainable development will be much more difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

Nice one though… good luck with the ‘tache. I’ve had one for years and have nearly got used to the comments!

Politicians have sat there watching the crisis unfurl, scared to intervene for fear of the bankers who perpetrated it moving to Dubai or China, or Frankfurt.. And we, the consumer, as usual (see 1983, 87, 92 and 2008) have had to pay the price.

I say pay the price. It has been noted for a few years now that money was free. 125% mortgages said more than anything that the UK economy was on an increasing trajectory, with no end to the rampant growth in sight.

We the consumer decided that it was a good thing, and partied in some sort of fiscal orgy. We forgot that tag line,’ things may go down as well as up’ and guess what…the never ending bacchanalian market has gone a bit limp, and we’re all looking for someone to blame.

We could look to ourselves, always wanting the next big thing, the best of this, the largest of that. Any TV fly on the wall documentary has greedily followed this graceless pursuit of mammon with no regard for the downside. We became a tasteless, money fixated heaving mass with dinner party conversations around how many flats and houses we owned and how it would all just continue.

And now we want to blame someone, the financial services companies offering free dreams, of effortless lives and retirements. We had a choice. We could say no, be prudent and make intelligent decisions as intelligent people, but somehow, we didn’t and the government and the bankers conspired to bring the party to an end. Don’t give me the hogwash that the banks were just trying to be lovely guys!

Well, perhaps we can get back to more realistic goals, start to relearn the effort of industry in achieving our ambitions. Nothing is free. In our industry, no one under the age of 40 who went to Uni has experienced a bad time and well, here it is. We need to redefine what we consider success to be, start taking the medicine and learn from the unchecked excess of the last ten+ years.

The hangover will be quite something; the lesson, if learned will be constructive. Yes, the financial institutions were a tad profligate, but we greedily encouraged it. We are all culpable, that rash of excess is our own fault. Now is the time to deal with it, so gird your loins, tighten your belt and stop trying to pass the buck.