Last week in these pages James Woudhuysen argued that concerns about the economic impact of climate change highlighted by the recent Stern Review were in danger of stifling technology innovation.

He claimed that “apprehensive” thinking about the future is prompting knee-jerk actions such as taxing carbon emissions and advised IT chiefs to “avoid ‘backcasting’ the worst-case scenarios of the future so as to justify impulsive actions in the present”.

Woudhuysen cited the internet as an example of what could happen if present technology decisions are made based on future fears, arguing that the web and all its benefits may have been killed at birth if someone in the 1960s had envisaged two of its primary uses would be gambling and pornography. It is an interesting argument, but I think it is fundamentally flawed in two areas.

The first is the suggestion that action by IT chiefs to limit their carbon footprint would be based on unreliable projections of the future. All forecasts are by their nature uncertain, but Stern’s are as certain as we can get. Furthermore, firms act on economic, financial, demographic and social projections that have a margin of error so there is no reason why they shouldn’t act on climate projections that highlight potentially massive risks. Failure to do so would be a gross dereliction of fiduciary duty.

Secondly, the “impulsive actions” Woudhuysen advises IT chiefs to avoid are less impulsive, more best practice. Initiatives such as improving the energy-efficiency of IT hardware, enhancing utilisation rates of existing servers, recycling equipment, and implementing more sophisticated online communication to replace corporate travel, would be astute cost-cutting measures even if climate change was a myth.

More comprehensive green investments, such as carbon offsetting or signing up to renewable energy suppliers, also make sense from a commercial perspective in that they improve brand image and help bolster staff morale.

This is the main reason green business models have become a major issue in the past year. They lower costs and mitigate risks.

IT Week is convinced the emergence of these models will be one of the defining business trends of the next decade and beyond, which is why we have launched a new Green Business News blog to offer information for those firms making this complex transition.

The truth is that acting to limit your carbon emissions is not an unnecessary “fire drill” as Woudhuysen argues; it is the new reality and those that act first will see the greatest commercial, personal, and environmental benefits.