As countries continue to work towards a unified response to global warming, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen made it clear that there is still a significant amount of work to be done to gain coordinated agreement on emissions reductions.

Companies should not be lulled into thinking this is reason to put their own environmental programs on the back burner. A wait-and-see attitude now could place them at a significant competitive disadvantage in the future.

While the Copenhagen conference struggled to reach full agreement, it did succeed in elevating the issue of climate change to the highest level of government. There is now political consensus for a long-term global response. In practical terms, this means that most countries are currently looking at strategies and policies to achieve carbon reduction.

In such an environment, companies that quickly demonstrate leadership in reducing their carbon footprint will be set apart as corporate winners in the eyes of their stakeholders and customers, and will be in a stronger position to attract the new generation of employees. Those that wait for direction or regulatory enforcement may never catch up. More importantly, they will have missed the opportunity to prepare their business and set the foundations for full participation in the green economy of the future.