Once it becomes an economic and a regulatory issue, businesses really have to sit up and take a very keen interest in what’s going on.

The whole business of how we run the planet, how we exploit natural resources, how we make sure we do it in a way that doesn’t destroy the very thing that gives us life, is a very important issue, you can’t get anything more important than that.

Politicians have to be elected and so they have to respond to the people that elect them. If people are interested in these issues, and if they let the politicians know, then inevitably there will be a political response. In some instances, governments do take the lead. In Europe, for example, the environmental concern of business is due to the regulations and carbon trading schemes that governments have imposed, which require businesses that are involved in energy intensive industries to monitor their carbon.

I became an environment correspondent because it has become a major issue, where a lot of things intersect, including politics, business, social concerns, science, and people. It touches everyone's life. A few years ago, it would have been very difficult to get so many environmental stories into a newspaper like the Financial Times, but now, thanks to science, people are aware of the problems of climate change, water, pollution, and over-exploitation of natural habitats. We get a lot of feedback from readers, saying ‘yes, we want to know more about this’.