Since the 1992 Rio summit, world economies have behaved just the way it was expected. Developed countries have sparred with the developing world (read, India-China), asking it to share more of the responsibility for controlling greenhouse gas emissions. Developing countries have mostly gone their own way. And as countries find it dismally difficult to even spur growth in 2012, climate issues are not really centre-stage now. But as the fourth edition of the FE-EVI Green Business Survey, to be released today, shows, some of the largest changes are coming through business. Core elements of sustainable development are now increasingly a part of the consciousness of corporate entities in India. On World Environment Day, and as a precursor to the Rio+20 summit in Brazil later this month, this is good news. A good example is the news that Rio de Janeiro's Jardim Gramacho dump, the world's largest open-air landfill, containing about 60 million tonnes of trash, has been shut down this weekend, and now more than 200 wells will begin piping carbon dioxide and methane to a Petrobas facility, where these greenhouse gases will be converted into fuel for heating homes and powering cars. The cynics say this ‘trashy transformation’ owes greater thanks to the 2014 Fifa World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, which Rio will be hosting as well. But this only shows that self-interest is possibly the strongest motivator for appropriate responses to climate change issues.

From the the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to the Kyoto Protocol and the Millennium Development Goals, so many epoch-making moves are traceable back to that 1992 Rio summit. While experts have cribbed that only 20 paragraphs out of the approximately 400 in a 160 page negotiation paper for Rio+20 have been agreed on, even as Kyoto’s first roster of pledges is set to expire by this year’s end, the growth in emerging economies’ emissions is outpacing that of developed economies, the melting of Arctic ice is releasing new greenhouse gases into the global atmosphere-climate system, and we are on course for average temperatures to increase, the movement ahead is being pioneered by “self-interested companies” coming forward to tell the world about their specific efforts at introducing elements of sustainability in their core business operations. A critical mass of companies moving in this direction can make a real difference.