November's topic: Energy, Environment and the Impact on Business

For some people, the threat of climate change is the single most important issue facing the world today. For others it is at best an inconvenience. Businesses cannot bear the whole weight of environmental responsibility, but neither can governments achieve the necessary results by themselves. On the eve of the Copenhagen climate change summit, we ask notable academics, writers and commentators what must be done to save the planet.
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Visitor comments

Atul Sharma
India

Preserve the greenery by which is existing and plant more trees. Use garbage for reproduction or recycle.

Muhammad Naveed
Pakistan (Rawalpindi)

I think that it would be a better decision to continue our doings maintaining our environment. Both business activities and environment are important at their own place. But what if we manage our demands according to our needs, not for extra-luxurious life! Wouldn't be it better for maintenance of both? After all life on earth is more important than just luxuries.

Elvis A. Akama
Central Africa

In order to save the planet, I advice we encourage rural settlement. This can be done by providing the basic necessities like: electricity, hospitality, pipe water, road, etc.

Jia Wei
Beijing

Using public traffic every day will significantly reduce carbon dioxide emit.

Sky
china

Not every has the consiousness that our living planet is now suffering from the pollution.

Nicole
Greece

Green business leaders should find ways to internalize the environmental abatement costs of their businesses without passing these costs to consumers. Governments should take additional steps towards capacity building focusing on changing green consumers' behavior.

Evdokia
Bulgaria

Meat is murder. If everyone went vegetarian we would immediately solve half the world's environmental problems. And we would smell better.

Tarquin Laver
Basingstoke

Climate change is a marketing con trick, used by capitalist governments and companies to make us buy stuff that we don't need.

Rachel Johnson
London

On the day of the London bombings in July 2007, everyone had to walk back from work. I'm not saying that we should bomb cities, but if we shut down the transport systems once a month it might force people to exercise more and save energy.

Aiden McQueen
Texas, USA

It's great to see that INSEAD and Business Week are taking this subject seriously. Look forward to seeing more of this kind of coverage.

Ignacio
Sao Paolo, Brazil

One of your commentators says that poverty is the enemy of the environment. I disagree. It's the thoughtless wealthy who waste energy, churning out emissions just to make more money, that causes most of the problems. If everyone was poor there would be far less pollution.