In recent years Grant Thornton has examined the sustainability both of places and businesses. In 2011, in our Sustainable Cities report we looked at what UK cities were doing and saying about sustainability and how they compared with some of their European counterparts.

We saw that all the major UK cities had moved away from a simple commitment to “do their bit” for climate change to something much more complex about planning for the long-term future of the city itself.

This idea of planning for a sustainable future for the city required policymakers to see the city as an organic whole and its success depended on understanding how different physical, social and cultural elements interacted.

Sustainability needs to be championed at the highest level in an organisation. In times of austerity, this will only happen if the strategy also offers real short to medium-term prospects of improving economic growth prospects and the lives of the people affected.

Put simply, if a sustainability strategy is defined in narrow environmental terms, it will fail. The strategy should draw in everything that affects long term planning; and there is a balance of factors to be taken into account: environmental, social, economic and institutional.

In 2012 we published our Sustainable Businesses report, looking specifically at mid-sized businesses and public sector bodies. We found a strength of commitment to sustainability but corresponding challenges in embedding sustainability into the organisation.

Often it had not reached the core functions of a business, such as finance and HR. The process of integrating sustainability, of making it part of an organisation’s DNA, had in most cases only just begun.

Perhaps instead of asking a business or a place ‘do you want to be sustainable?’ we should ask ‘do you want to save money, develop new markets, improve the brand and build a business fit for the future?’

Let us not be under any illusion: The overwhelming majority of scientists tell us that global warming is the biggest long-term threat we face.

However, it is also clear that people often find shorter term threats more compelling. If the debate is framed as a choice between a risk that may seem intangible and ill-defined (and still challenged by a vocal minority) and immediate economic problems, using sustainability as a driver for change is going to be an uphill struggle.

And yet, amongst the business community, the commitment to sustainability has never been stronger. Why is this? Amid the apparent policy confusion, people are starting to realise that sustainability represents a significant opportunity to change business models for the better.

It could be an opportunity to commercialise new low carbon technologies, to save money by being resource efficient, to create more resilient supply chains or to differentiate the brand. Governments, while struggling perhaps with the budgetary implications of supporting renewable energy, are also recognising that “green growth” can be hugely valuable.

Last year, the Green Alliance, in a report entitled Green Economy: a UK Success Story, calculated that the UK exported low carbon and environmental goods and services to 52 countries in 2010 – 2011 totalling £11.8billion (€13.9 billion). The Confederation for British Industry forecast that in 2014-15, green business was expected to halve the UK’s trade deficit.

In the past decade, a huge amount of attention has been paid to renewable energy. This is still the case to a large extent. For example, Grant Thornton manages, on behalf of the UK Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (‘BIS’), a £50 million (€59 million) programme of support for the English offshore wind supply chain called GROW Offshore Wind. Why? Because the Government believes the global export market for offshore wind is worth £50 billion (€59 billion) to the UK economy.

However, investment is increasingly taking place across a broader range of sustainability programmes. Urban development presents significant opportunities to make places more resilient and better places to live, as well as cost effective and environmentally more efficient.

Initiatives include building retrofit and street lighting projects for energy efficiency; district heating and cooling; low carbon transport; changing the urban landscape; as well as greener waste management, etc.

The role of information technology in all of these areas is critical, and the sustainability agenda is developing rapidly alongside big data and superfast communications.

Different places will have different mixes of priorities – the need to mitigate exposure to global energy costs, for instance, by reducing demand and diversifying the mix, the need to create high value economic opportunity, or the need to preserve fragile ecosystems or historically important architecture.

The challenge is stitching these together in a coherent overarching narrative which is capable of delivering short-term benefits while mapping out a journey that addresses the issues for the next generation as well as this one.

Perhaps instead of asking a business or a place “do you want to be sustainable?”, we should ask “do you want to save money, develop new markets, improve the brand and build a business fit for the future?”. That doesn’t sound like too tough a decision to me.

Mr Goode is one of the guest speakers at the launch of the public consultation process on the formulation of a Green Economy Action Plan and a Green Jobs Strategy that will be held tomorrow, November 1, at the Corinthia San Ġorġ at 9.30am.

Nathan Goode is the global leader for the energy and cleantech industry and a partner at Grant Thornton UK.