I visited Beijing a couple weeks ago to speak to a group of Chinese corporate executives. They were brought together by a major environmental NGO to discuss climate change. The meeting itself was fascinating, but I was really struck by a general impression in China that the country is taking green business very seriously.

I was interviewed by one of the major Chinese-language financial newspapers, which has a weekly section on clean technology. And each morning at my hotel I received the China Daily, the country's main English-language newspaper. Throughout the news and business coverage, the feeling that sustainability is crucial to the future of the country and its industries is palpable.

Out of 20 feature articles in the business section on November 15th, for example, five were all about the glories (and sometimes challenges) of green. Of course this is anecdotal evidence, but it demonstrates a level of conversation that the rest of the world should take note of.

Of these 5 articles, some were self-explanatory:

• "Nation spurs development of new, green technologies"
• "VW: Tooling up for sustainability"
• "Batteries still drag 'green vehicle' effort"

Two articles didn't scream sustainability until you read them:

• "Chemical company paints rosy picture for the future," which opens with the question, "How can a chemical company earn more money through eco-friendly products?" The article shows how the Dutch firm AkzoNobel is growing in China, particularly through products that help customers reduce environmental footprint in the shipping and building sectors.
• "China Hi-Tech Fair ready to highlight emerging industries," which describes China's largest tech show going on this week in Shanghai.

This last article is the one that really grabbed my attention. The theme of the big event was "Technology-led Transition and Innovation-driven Development," which sounds broad. But the focus was squarely on "energy saving, environmental protection, and the low-carbon economy" with other emerging areas -- infotech, biotech, and modern materials -- taking a distinctly secondary role.

Each major government ministry in China was pitching green products and services at the tradeshow. The Ministry of Commerce was showing how some companies "have made use of technology to...promote a low-carbon economy and environmental protection." The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's pavilion will demonstrate "industrial energy savings and the comprehensive use of resources." And on and on.

Clearly, China is making green a central pursuit of business, not a side issue. Contrast this with the approach in the U.S., where the equivalent to China's Hi-Tech Fair might be something like the Consumer Electronics Show. It's hard to imagine the focus of that Vegas extravaganza shifting from new entertainment devices and other energy-using toys to energy-sipping technologies.

In the U.S. business community, green is still a separate pursuit -- frankly, it's usually ghettoized within companies and industry events alike. Most green-themed gatherings are still relatively small and feature a recurring cast of characters. The one major exception, which does not disprove the rule, is the mega-event GreenBuild which, coincidentally, was happening at the same time, but in Chicago. Tens of thousands of people gathered to explore green building materials, designs, and strategies.

But imagine if the even-larger annual event held by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) was focused mainly on environmental issues (I actually spoke at NAHB two years ago as a green keynoter, but to a few hundred people in a side room, not the thousands that attend the main-stage events). That's what China's Hi-Tech Fair is doing.

I wrote a couple of months ago about China's leadership in the clean tech race, but at the macro level. It's another thing to see the green focus up close. However, the company execs and NGO leaders in Beijing tell me that sustainability is still a new pursuit for Chinese companies. It's really the government that's pushing the agenda with massive investments in clean tech. At the corporate level, they're looking to the U.S. and the West for best practices. But don't count them out for long; if there's one thing Chinese companies are good at, it's implementing a "fast follower" strategy.

Still, before I got too carried away with conclusions about the difference in approaches -- and it's nearly impossible not to trip up trying to generalize about China -- I wanted to see if the November 15th issue of the China Daily was an anomaly. Then the November 16th issue arrived at my door and the cover story was about alternative energy.

(This post first appeared at Harvard Business Online.)

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The world is meeting in Cancun this week to talk climate change. Is there any hope of a large-scale agreement on capping emissions around the world? Most pundits would say no.

Why can't we agree to do something? The answers are varied and all contain some truth. There are, for example...

* The inherent challenges of tackling a problem so diffuse and long-term with responsibility laying with all 7 billion of us
* Psychological barriers to change
* A media that paints all issues as having two equal sides even if it's 99 to 1
* Powerful, vested interests in the old, fossil-fuel-based economy
* The fact that the U.S. has no federal climate policy, which makes global negotiations nearly impossible. (And with the recent U.S. election bringing to power more climate deniers, we're moving further away from ever having a federal policy.)

All of these problems, and many more, contribute to the repeated failure of global climate summits. But the hurdle that keeps coming up year after year and is perhaps the hardest to get over is the radical difference in perspective between the developed world and the up-and-coming powerhouses of China, India, and Brazil.

I spoke at a meeting of corporate execs in Beijing a couple of weeks ago and got a glimpse of these different viewpoints. Before my talk, a Chinese academic gave an overview of climate science and policy. He spoke in Chinese, so I understood little (ok, none) of the language, but the charts he put up were crystal clear...carbon dioxide levels over time, commitments for greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions by country, and so on.

But first he set the stage with a chart that gets to the core of the issue. It's data that we rarely discuss in the West, but seems to be pretty important over there. I'm talking about the cumulative CO2 emissions, by country, since the industrial revolution.

In his version, China was responsible for a tiny sliver. I looked up the numbers myself and created the pie chart below - it may not be perfect, but it's close enough. China is responsible for about 8% of the historical emissions from 1850 to 2002, but clearly the developed world is primarily responsible for the climate problem to date.

------------------------------------------------

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This historical responsibility is irrefutable. But at the same time, the projections for emissions growth show that the new economic powers will be contributing the lion's share going forward. According to the International Energy Agency, China will be responsible for over one-third of the worldwide growth in energy demand over the next 25 years (full pdf report here).

This reality about future responsibility has been very convenient for those who want to drag their feet on climate action; it was one of the main reasons President Bush used to avoid climate negotiations. Why should we join the Kyoto Protocol, he'd say, if China and India don't have responsibilities?

This is not a new debate, especially to anyone who has watched the climate policy world at all. But I still found it useful to be reminded of the historical figures. It's sort of surprising to see it in hard numbers...and it explains so much.

Here's the crux of the problem: When the West/North says, "you will be the largest emitter going forward, so you have to cut back" and the East/South says, "you created the problem, so you should go first," they're both right. Can you think of a tougher situation for negotiation than when both parties are absolutely correct and yet their positions are so far apart?

But the reality is that Nature doesn't care who started this. When you find yourself in a boat that's leaking and sinking, you start bailing. You can't spend too much time worrying about who poked the hole. So while I believe the developing world's moral position is unimpeachable, it doesn't matter. The science will win, and the data tells us that putting any more carbon in the air is incredibly dangerous for our species. So everyone has to change.

I'd like to think that the world is moving away from these old debates, but they're still seething not too far from the surface. China's negotiating position in Cancun, according to the New York Times, is that the West should cut emissions, pay for the shift to a cleaner economy, and provide technologies to developing countries. Again, this is sort of hard to argue with - everyone must bail out the boat, but the responsible parties can pay for buckets. But given the fiscal and political realities in the developed world, us paying more for anything seems remarkably unlikely.

So my hope is what it always is: the business community will take the lead from the governments of the world and continue investing in and implementing clean technologies, regardless of the success or failure of the global negotiations.

Given how deeply felt the convictions are on every side - and the fact that they're all based in reality and truth - hoping for the business world to lap the policy world may be the only reasonable hope we have.

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Here's my attempt to capture the most important stories that affected the greening of business in 2010. To keep this to blog length, it's going to be quick, so see the links for more on these stories.

The first five are macro-level issues that affect the context for business:

1. The climate bill dies in the U.S. Senate. Any hope for a national approach to tackling the largest challenge facing humanity petered out pathetically this year (see the complete, sad tale in a Pulitzer-worthy New Yorker article). Unfortunately for every other country, this is a global story. When the U.S. can't get its act together, the world can't create global policies, and thus the Cancun meeting last week resulted in some nice agreements to raise funds for adaptation -- arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, anyone? -- but no binding targets on carbon.

2. Nature strikes back/Climate change is real. Ironically, given the rising debate in the U.S. on the science, the world got hotter, a lot hotter, this decade and this year. Russia saw its worst drought in 1,000 years (video), and Pakistan was overcome by flooding (video). Scientists will always give the caveat that you cannot blame climate change for any single weather event, but let's get real - this is what devastating climate change looks like on the ground. These weather events also directly affect resource availability, bringing me to my next point...

3. Resources get very tight. The drought in Russia destroyed 40% of its wheat crop, so Putin pulled wheat -- 1/6 of the global trade in the crop -- off the global market, driving up wheat prices. The floods in Pakistan helped double the price of cotton. And I could write a book on the topic of rare earth metals, those precious elements that make nearly every green technology possible and go into every iPhone. China mines 95% of these metals, and it needs them all now, making the U.S. "vulnerable to rare earth shortages." We're also vulnerable on fossil fuels. We learned from the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico that readily accessible oil is a thing of the past -- we don't dig one mile under the ocean for the heck of it. So most natural resources are getting more scarce, from oil to metals to crops. Smart companies like Hitachi are trying to find solutions, such as its new plan to develop rare earth recycling technologies.

4. China, China, China. Did I mention rare earth metals? Or the rise of the world's largest solar producer from a manufacturing base of nearly nothing a few years ago? Or how about China's unparalleled (and some would say illegal) support for its renewables companies, which has the World Trade Organization fretting about trade barriers? China is very serious about its green ambitions, with support from the very top, and the business community is taking note.

5. Renewables are for real and moving fast. Ok, there's some good news. The market for renewables is growing fast. About 45% of Portugal's electricity comes from renewables, and this is up from 18% in just five years. Germany, not really the sunniest country in the world, added 1% of its electric needs in solar in 2010 alone (it took 10 years to get the first 1% online, and just 8 months for the second 1%). No wonder HSBC says the market for clean tech and climate change solutions will top $2.2 trillion by 2020.

Now for the company-level stories:

6. Supply chain pressure continues to rise (a.k.a., Wal-Mart doesn't slow down). Even coming out of the recession, this was a big year for green supply chain announcements. In February, Wal-Mart said it would eliminate 20 million metric tons of GHG emissions from its supply chain. Then in October, the retail giant announced it would double the amount of locally-grown produce on its shelves (and former sustainability exec Matt Kistler indicated this year that products getting higher scores in its Sustainability Index would get more shelf space). We also saw big announcements from P&G and Kaiser Permanente on supplier scorecards, IBM greatly increasing its demands on suppliers, and Pepsi using detailed carbon lifecycle data to make suppliers rethink how they grow Tropicana oranges.

7. Zero is the new black. Companies seem to be tripping over themselves on the path to "zero waste." GM announced that 62 of its plants now send zero waste to landfill, and UK retailer Marks & Spencer reached a 92% diversion rate on the way to its zero goals. And Sony one-upped everyone by setting a goal of zero environmental impact across its operations by 2050.

8. Big goals were back. Recession-schmecession. Sony wasn't the only one setting aggressive targets. Panasonic said it wanted its GHG emissions to peak by 2018 and it would greatly increase sales of eco-products. Unilever has probably gone the furthest, announcing it would double sales by 2020, but halve total environmental impact (among other big goals). Unilever's leaders are serious about driving these plans into the operations of the whole company.

9. Electric vehicles storm the market. The Nissan LEAF was just named 2011 European Car of the Year, and GE announced it would buy 25,000 electric cars. Since the auto industry is one of the biggest in the world, there will be ripples from this movement. Enough said.

10. Small guys can do it too. It's easy to get caught up in the tales of giant companies. So one of my favorite stories of the year is a simple example of eco-efficiency and savings from 10-employee Bowman Design with just 2,000 square feet of office space in Southern California (where else?). See founder Tom Bowman's description of his company's path to a 65% reduction in GHG emissions and $9,000 savings annually (ok, I'll admit that I didn't mind that Tom name-checked my book Green to Gold in his article, but I don't know him).

11. (Bonus!) The Military gets serious about green. Honorable mention to the government and military, which is technically not "green business". But they're not kidding around, from plans to greatly reduce reliance on oil and diesel in Army operations, to Navy sustainability plans and test flights of planes running on biofuels. Go military green!

Looking Forward to 2011

No list would be complete without utterly over-confident predictions of the future. It's obvious that the pressures/themes above will continue to get stronger in the coming year. In particular, and in addition...

• Supply chain pressure will evolve and get more sophisticated (such as retailers who said in August they would not buy fuel from Canadian oil sands). This shift will be partly driven by...
• A data explosion around green is brewing. Companies will know more than ever about their impacts up and down the value chain.
• Water will become a very big topic for business (it began this year, but there will be some great stories in my 2011 wrap up a year from now). My first couple of blogs of the New Year will look at water strategy.
• Biomimicry, the design principle that suggests looking to nature for great ideas, will gain currency
• Energy innovation will be the order of the day (e.g., the Paris metro station that captures body heat to warm a nearby building)

But here's my final, shocking prediction: climate change policy won't matter (much). Even though the failure of the bill was my #1 above, #2 through 10 tells me that for business, the logic of green does not depend on believing in climate change, or in having a law in place. The natural resource, supply chain, innovation, and profit drivers are just too strong.

Business will be getting a lot greener in every sense of the word, no matter what political battles are waging. We're going to stop debating climate in the business community and just focus on the larger case for prosperity, for companies and countries alike.

I'm sure I missed many, many great stories. Please share your favorites here, and have a merry green new year!

(This post first appeared at Harvard Business Online.)

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I recently attended my home association’s annual meeting, a gentle community affair that focused on reviewing our budget. Only one line item was way up this year – after a record winter in Connecticut, snow removal fees rose 30%. No big surprise.

But I was shocked to learn from the association president that the snow levels and fees would be “back down to normal next year.” Apparently all climate changes would be remedied by December of this year. Phew.

I considered chiming in on the true uncertainty about climate “weirding” and how we could get no snow next winter…or a lot more. But since it’s a relatively small part of our budget, I figured I’d just let the chips fall where they may.

In this case, the level of denial about where we’re really headed as a planet is of little consequence. But what happens when large cities or countries make investment and planning decisions based on either science or denial?

The New York Times just reported on Chicago’s impressive plans for climate adaptation. I spoke last year at an event in Chicago and a climate expert from the Union of Concerned Scientists showed one of the more powerful slides I’ve ever seen on climate impacts (see below). Over time, Illinois will find itself feeling more like the 2010 version of east Texas. As the Times pointed out, models indicate that Chicago will see 70 or more days per year over 90 degrees (vs. 15 each year over the last century).

Source: Union of Concerned Scientists -- see report here

The Times article is a fascinating look at how one city is grappling with this possible scenario. The city is shifting to more permeable pavement and planting hardier species of trees (over the last 30 years, they’ve already shifted about one growing zone).

In comparison, witness the sad display of lack of leadership from Texas Governor Rick Perry last month. Facing record droughts, the Governor suggested everyone pray for rain. Faith is fine, but not to the exclusion of actual preparedness.

This divide is starting to play out on the national and global scale. As I’ve written about many times, the U.S. is falling behind on clean economy spending and investment versus China, Germany, Britian, and many others. As Yale 360 (a wonderful publication) reported recently, the U.S. ranks 17th on clean tech spending as a percentage of GDP (Denmark is #1).

The global levels are hard to compare of course, but preparedness in our communities? That’s easy to imagine and the differences are tangible. The unprepared will be struggling with heat, floods, water shortages, and much more. Over time, the gap between states and cities that are ready and areas that are in denial could make the country’s current blue/red divide seem quaint.

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Yes, it's December again somehow: time to look back on what we've learned and oversimplify into a handy list. Here's my take on the 10 big stories in sustainability and green business this year:

1. The usual sustainability drivers got stronger
Ok, this one is cheating a bit, but on a fundamental level, the top themes in green business haven't actually changed too much (see the 2010 list). So, rather than take up valuable list real estate with these perennial favorites and big-picture drivers, I'll quickly list them in one big bucket of mega-trends:

• The rise of the consumer around the world, related to...
• China, China, and China. From relentless demand for resources to bamboo-like 9% growth to vicious competition for the technologies and industries of the future, China will be the big story for a long time.
• The greening of the supply chain. Big organizations keep asking more of their suppliers.
• Increased demand for transparency and its close partners, (a) the quest to define and develop useful sustainability metrics and (b) the growing sustainability data explosion.
• The military continues to lead the way on energy and climate.
• The ongoing failure of policy at a global level (with the important exceptions of some successes/workarounds such as new mileage targets for cars and trucks and a carbon tax in Australia).

These drivers underpin a number of stories from 2011, but a few new themes came out as well. Here's the rest of my top 10 stories, with callouts for companies and examples that typify the trend.

2. Malthus strikes back: Coca-Cola takes an $800 million hit on commodity costs
Coca-Cola was not alone in facing increasing costs in 2011; one of my clients, Kimberly-Clark, took an earnings hit from record pulp prices. These companies are notable victims of a new reality: resources are constrained and input prices are fundamentally rising.

For over 200 years, from Thomas Malthus to the Limits to Growth gang, many people have made the case that it won't be long before we'll run out of food, energy, materials, and on and on. It's an idea that has enthralled many, but has seemed to be wrong. But this year, something felt different as we hit 7 billion hungry, striving humans on the planet. While "running out" isn't really the right phrase, it's clear that delivering many commodities to market is getting harder and more expensive (we don't dig for oil a mile under the ocean for the heck of it). And the dangerous mix of supply crunch and rising demand is only increasing, across nearly all commodities.

In January, China "seized" its rare earth metals (meaning it wouldn't export them anymore). In June, the New York Times declared a warming world hostile to food production. The best analysis of the resource scarcity mega-trend came from asset manager Jeremy Grantham. His analysis of commodity availability on a finite planet is compelling, thorough, and absolutely fascinating. Here's the gist: after 100+ years of fundamentally declining resource prices, the data show a rising trend for nearly every input into our society. Business as usual is no more.

3. Climate Change Arrives: Texas weather triumphs over (some) ignorance
Climate change is here. The list of "once-in-a-century" storms, floods, and droughts this year is too long to list. I know, I know — no single storm or season "proves" climate change. Was a year like 2011 possible in a world without climate change? Of course. But please. Was a year like 2011 likely? Not at all. In the words of climate scientist Jim Hansen, we've loaded the dice in favor of extreme weather events.

From Thailand to Pakistan to Texas, some areas are deluged with water, while others have absolutely none. Please look at the numbers for how dry and hot Texas was this summer (I'll wait). The data speaks for itself: Texas' heat was literally off the charts this year. What was once temporary drought is looking more like permanent change. For another angle on a changing "normal," read Jeff Goodell's piece in Rolling Stone on "Climate Change and the End of Australia." Finally, if the immediacy of the "look out the window" method of gauging climate change didn't work for some, at least one major climate skeptic changed his tune based on longer-term data. Richard Muller ran the models himself and discovered that, surprise, the thousands of scientists before him had gotten it right. It's probably wishful thinking, but I believe the climate debate is actually over (and a solid majority of Americans agree).

4. High-profile "failures" shake up clean tech: Solyndra has its day in the, um, sun
What can one say about the failure of solar company Solyndra? It certainly has become a media darling for clean tech skeptics. Soon after this quasi-fiasco, a few other stories seemed to indicate that corporate America was backing off of green tech. Google stopped its high-profile pursuit of cheaper-than-fossil-fuel renewables, and California utility PG&E quietly pulled the plug on its carbon offset program. In my view, none of this is all that distressing. So one technology and company failed miserably (and perhaps the government made a bad investment choice). And some initiatives didn't work out as planned. So what. Whether it's government money, venture capital, or corporate initiatives, you gotta place lots of bets to get some winners. These were all experiments, and you always learn from what doesn't work. But the real reason I'm not too worried is that...

5. ...clean tech is rising fast: Renewable investment tops fossil fuels for first time
Markets have a remarkable way of sorting the wheat from the chaff. While the overall carbon emissions news is not good, the renewable energy market is growing very fast. The sector is larger than most people realize, with clean tech investment hovering around $200 billion globally. Total investment in new power generation is a good indication of where we're headed, and for the first time renewables beat fossil fuels globally. Right now, the U.S. and China are entering a trade battle over solar subsidies, which tells me it's a real market now. They wouldn't be arguing if the prize were not very large.

5b. Nuclear on the outs

Following the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, Japan, the once-resurgent nuclear industry is flatlining: generation actually fell globally in 2011, with Germany alone shutting down 8 gigawatts' worth. In September, Siemens, one of the world's largest nuclear power plant suppliers, exited the business. CEO Peter Loscher declared Germany's plans to move aggressively toward renewables "the project of the century."

6. Water rising — both literally and as a serious issue for business: Honda's supply chain gets slammed, Levi's gets creative
A list of floods that devastated lives, homes, and countries this year would be tragically long. So it's no wonder that business started to wake up to the serious danger that storms and shortages present to their operations, both from direct damage to property and from massive production interruptions (i.e., "business continuity"). Think back to the January floods in Australia which covered an area larger than France and Germany combined. The extreme weather seriously disrupted coal production, one of the most important economic engines in the country. At the microeconomic level, consider what Thailand's floods have done to the market for disk drives, or to supply chains for Honda and Toyota (which are dealing with a double flood hit from the tsunami as well).

On the use side of the water issue, companies with products that depend on water in production (beverages) or in use (shampoo, apparel) are also seeing the writing on the wall and getting creative. Levi's announced a low-water jeans production method, Unilever started asking customers to shorten showers, and beverage companies are working with farmers and NGOs to drive water use down throughout the value chain (see my last blog, co-written with Andy Wales from SABMiller). In 2011, the phrase "water footprint" became a lot more common.

7. Value chain and transparency partnerships growing: The apparel industry bands together
One of my favorite new partnerships is the new Sustainable Apparel Coalition, an impressive mix of powerful retailers, apparel manufacturers, and NGOs. The group is leveraging extensive data from Nike and the Outdoor Industry Association on supplier sustainability performance (energy, water, toxicity, etc.) for "every manufacturer, component, and process in apparel production." The goal: to reduce negative environmental and social impacts of the $1.4 trillion market for clothes and shoes.

The larger trend here is the continued growth of "open" — open data and open innovation, including new value-chain business partnerships and cattle-call contests inviting in any and all ideas. The movement has been building for years, from P&G opening up its product development pipeline early in the 2000s to the launch of the GreenXchange for sharing green patents early in 2010. But the trend accelerated this year, with GE's expanded Ecomagination Challenge and other coalitions and open competitions.

8. Valuing and internalizing the externalities: Puma Calculates its Environmental P&L
A few very cutting edge companies are starting to ask some deeper questions about the value they create and destroy in the world. Puma, in a surprise leap to the front of the sustainability leadership pack, commissioned TruCost and PwC (full disclosure: I have a partnership with PwC) to assess the value of its total environmental impacts from operations and supply chain, including carbon pollution, water use, land use, and waste generated. The total: 145 million euros. In a similar vein, Dow Chemical launched a 5-year, $10 million partnership with The Nature Conservancy to "value nature" (so called "ecosystem services") as an input into their businesses. It's unclear what companies can do with these numbers since externalities are by their nature, well, external to the regular P&L. But it's the beginning of something very important — companies are starting to understand the real value and costs of their businesses, to themselves and to society. Watch this space.

9. The people speak: Keystone and OWS
Speaking of getting companies and governments to think longer term about value and costs to society: against all odds and expectation, the protests against the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada — led most prominently by uber-environmentalist Bill McKibben — were successful (for now). And what can one say about Occupy Wall Street? The movement is, in part, about this larger question of value and values. Do we value the right things (equity, fairness, justice) or just promote growth and profit above all? Currently, our businesses are driven entirely by quarterly profits. Pursuing the short-term payback can cause a firm to deviate wildly from actual, long-term, sustainable profitability. This disconnect was bound to stir some passions eventually. Whatever your politics, ignoring or dismissing this movement is a big mistake. The concerns underpinning the anger out there stem from concern about what's good for the long-term, and what's truly sustainable. None of these questions are going away.

10. A path to sustainable consumption begins to emerge: Patagonia asks us to buy only what we need
Perhaps the most heartening business story of the year came from perennial thought (and action) leader, Patagonia. Its Common Threads campaign/business model questions consumption at its core. The company announced that it would take back its clothing and refurbish, resell, reuse, re-whatever. The website proposes a grand bargain - we make clothes that last, and you don't buy what you don't need. A holiday ad got more specific and demanded we "Don't buy this jacket." Patagonia is testing new ground and it's not a gimmick — it's a sign of the future.

Looking Forward to 2012 and beyond: New business models coming
Patagonia has always been at the leading edge; it was one of first companies to buy organic cotton or to turn recycled plastic into fleece. Now it's showing the way to new business models. I've written about this kind of heresy before, but the few examples out there are generally B-to-B (Waste Management, Xerox). Patagonia's move is a warning shot over the bow that the consumer-facing consumption question is coming. The near future will hold more questions about how businesses can and should operate in a resource-constrained, hotter, drier (or wetter) world. And companies will increasingly question the wisdom of focusing on quarterly profits. It won't all come to fruition in 2012, but it's on its way.

As usual, I'm sure I'm missing many great stories in my list. I look forward to your suggestions. Happy holidays and Happy New Year!

(This post first appeared at Harvard Business Online.)

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