Writing for life

It’s summer and it’s raining again.

OK – perhaps that’s not such a great example of climate change. Soggy Irish summers are hardly a new phenomenon. But whether you think climate change is the single biggest challenge humanity has ever faced, or just an “inconvenient truth” that’s wreaking havoc with this year’s holiday plans – most people now acknowledge that climate change is, in fact, happening. What they can’t seem to agree on is how quickly it’s happening, and just how much of it is our fault.

Whether you subscribe to the idea that human influence is accelerating climate change or not (and popular opinion certainly supports that assertion), over the last few years big business has started to take notice, and green credentials have become valuable corporate currency.

Reading between the lines, of course, this green façade owes little to a desire to do the right thing, a deep seated environmental concern or even a desire to redress the inequities of the past. It’s more about image, and projecting the right image to consumers who are more environmentally aware – and concerned – than ever before. Being green is in vogue, and in an effort to appeal to their target markets big companies are quick to adopt the veneer of environmental propriety.

Of course it’s not just their customers that these organisations are trying to appeal to by turning over a new, greener leaf. Today’s well educated, highly skilled employees are ever more conscious of the impact their activities are having on the world around them. While green credentials don’t necessarily dictate a candidates choice of employer just yet, they are certainly starting to factor into the decision for a growing number of bright young candidates.

The popularisation of environmental issues brought about by climate change has also spawned a slew of new jobs, and lifted others from relative obscurity and thrust them into the limelight. One of the most visible examples of this is in the media. A few years ago your average environmental correspondent would be wheeled out once in a blue moon. Today they’re hitting the front page and prime-time airwaves on a practically daily basis.

It’s the same elsewhere: in industry, academia and across the public and private sector environmentally related positions carry more weight, have a higher profile, attract better salaries and offer improved career prospects. No matter which way you look at it there’s little doubt that the environment is now big business, and it’s growing all the time.

Which begs the question when is Ireland inc. going to cop on and realise that to maintain growth in our economy, preserve jobs and generally continue along the prosperous path we’ve all become accustomed to we need to take environmental issues much more seriously?

In the past our environmental record has been woeful, and current agricultural and industrial practices, coupled with a widespread apathy when it comes to changing our ways, hardly inspires confidence for the future. Still, with a new green party environment minister at the helm, and environmental issues topping the international agenda, perhaps we’ll finally start to get things right.

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