As business people we are always thinking about the future. We develop business plans, strategic plans and marketing plans to guide our future efforts and to help us monitor our direction and progress. We monitor and project cash flow to ensure we will make payroll or when we apply for credit. We develop goals and projections for our sales people. With respect to the nuts and bolts of our businesses we demonstrate daily we are able and willing, if not eager to account for the future implications of actions we take today. Yet in certain areas, such as health and sustainability, or "greening," many of us appear unwilling to make a similar accounting.

According to the National Centers for Disease Control, 70 percent of all deaths in the United States, 1.7 million each year, are caused by chronic disease. Although chronic diseases are among the most common and costly health problems, they are also among the most preventable. Adopting healthy behaviors such as eating nutritious foods, being physically active and avoiding tobacco use can prevent or control the devastating effects of these diseases. And so what, you ask, does this have to do with going (or not going) green?

Simple — at least it seems that way to me. I don’t believe that anyone really wants cancer, heart disease or diabetes. Rather when we eat that extra slice of pizza, choose the couch over the treadmill, drink and drive or have another smoke, on some level we really don’t connect with the long-term effects. It’s not necessarily that we don’t trust the experts; they are simply not at the top of our mind. In addition, depending on our age, the predicted impacts of our behaviors may be far enough into the future that we discount their severity today.

When I consider the ongoing debate over "green," climate change and "sustainability," I see some resemblance. I don’t believe anyone really wants to spoil the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, waste energy, pollute our beaches and groundwater, see garbage wash up on our shores or see temperatures rise and watch polar ice caps melt as California drops off into the ocean. Well, OK, maybe a few people do want to see California drop off into the ocean — but I trust only a few.

Discounting the future

The problem in both cases is that we, individually and collectively, have been making stupid decisions. Let’s face it; there are enough experts — academics, professionals, scientists, advocates, governments and others who agree our behaviors are altering the earth’s climate, maybe irreversibly. If we are not actively campaigning for the ultimate demise of our climate then what’s really going on?

Whether we consider chronic disease or the costs of "non-green" practices (please feel free to put into this basket what you will, but it invariably must include construction, waste management, transportation, resource management and more) many of us are making decisions today that indisputably affect our lives tomorrow as if either we didn’t plan to be around, we don’t take the information at hand seriously, or we simply value our needs, pleasures and wants today far more than we value tomorrow’s consequences.

In economic terms this notion of a discount rate is a way to assign a value of future benefits or costs in the present. For example, if you demand an interest rate of 5 percent in order to put $100 in the bank for a year rather than spend it today, your discount rate is approximately 5 percent. The higher your discount rate the more future benefit you require. For those of us who are CEOs and run businesses we consider the future in many of our decisions, financial and otherwise (right?). But for some reason when it comes to non-business or personal decisions somehow we lose perspective.

Our discount rate is too high. Despite the rapidly growing and in some cases indisputable body of knowledge relating to the (not too distant) future impact of our actions today we are all too willing to choose satisfaction today over pleasure tomorrow.

The problem with extremism

I think much of the debate over "green" versus "non-green" is related more to extremism than to the science. It may date back to Jimmy Carter’s fireside chat as president wearing a cardigan where the idea was born that energy conservation meant freezing in the dark. Organizations like Greenpeace and the Earth Liberation Front grab the headlines with what many consider environmental extremism and make it easy for many of us to dismiss scientifically valid and urgent environmental concerns. That is until we see the evidence ourselves of evolving trouble. This is a good time to reflect on certain recent occurrences.

• What is the impact on the American family if gas prices never fall much from present levels; if the recent resulting increase in food prices is here to stay?

• Were this summer’s floods in the Midwest really just a once-in-500 year occurrence?

• Can the earth really support a billion more people living and consuming at western levels with no ill effects?

• Is it possible that any of the conflicts in the Middle East have really been about preserving western oil interests?

• What happens when the countries that hold most of the world’s oil reserves hold those reserves hostage?

• Is the collapse of the Wilkins ice shelf, the size of Manhattan Island, just a coincidence?

• Do I really understand what happens if the average temperature of the earth were to rise just a couple of degrees?

• Am I becoming too complacent?

What’s a person to do?

I heard the tail end of a National Public Radio story about a recent election in which the incumbent had died the Saturday prior to the Tuesday election. When one of the people who voted for the dead incumbent was asked why, he said, "Because I don’t like change." Many people don’t. They don’t want to change habits that have worked well. But maybe they’re not working so well anymore. My work demands that I drive locally quite a bit. There were times this summer I paid more than $60 to fill up my car. The cost of food is up and what I consider "the corn crisis," a poor excuse for energy policy can only make things worse. So what’s a person to do?

If we give any credence at all to the arguments for going green, reducing our carbon footprint, managing scarce natural resources, preserving natural environments, reducing energy consumption or taking climate change seriously we need to start assigning a higher present value to the consequences of not taking these arguments seriously. We need to start making decisions about our behavior today as if the future really mattered to us, even if we aren’t going to be around.

Most of us are not in a position to truly analyze and decide on the scientific merits of the arguments for and against. But at the July meeting of the G8, the world’s major industrialized countries, the United States agreed to join the others in setting a commitment to halve emissions by mid-century. It seems that the debate on "if" there is a problem may be closing. However for us as individuals, absent the ability to make individual determinations, I think we need to take more seriously the words of the great American philosopher Clint Eastwood, who summed up the other choice nicely as Dirty Harry when he asked that now famous question, "Do you feel lucky punk? Well, do ya?"

Even if you do feel lucky, if you think environmental concerns are overblown and the green movement is an overreaction to a problem that may not even exist, consider in simple terms some undeniable truths about the growing role of "green" in business.

• The green movement has transitioned from a cause to save our environment into a full-fledged, vetted economy. This new economy is projected to be as large or larger than the Internet-related economy by orders of magnitude.

• Companies that look out for the triple bottom line position themselves as sector leaders, lower operating costs and increase revenues and profit.

• Hiring and retention is and will continue to be one of the top three issues for companies of all sizes. Many of today’s employees want to work for companies that embrace green policies.

As a society and as business people with the resources and leverage to make a difference, we have a choice to make. We can think of it as analogous in some ways to Pascal’s wager.

1. We can act as if there is no problem and take no action. If we are right we get to wag our fingers at millions of people who have come to think otherwise and we’ve avoided needless investments. If we are wrong we become part of the problem.

2. We can act as if there is in fact a problem and take decisive action. If we are right we become part of the solution to a critical problem. If we are wrong, we still reap the market-based benefits and can feel good about ourselves and what we have accomplished.

So, in the words of that great American philosopher Clint Eastwood……

Contact Gary Hirsch at gary.hirsch@vistage.com or (520) 225-0373. Hirsch is a group chair and executive coach with Vistage International (www.vistage.com). He leads a group of Tucson CEOs, company presidents and business owners who meet monthly to become better leaders, make better decision and achieve better results, typically growing up to three times faster after joining a Vistage group. Members have access to expert resource speakers, executive coaching and an online community of 14,000 CEOs.